Come Around
by Quetzal1
Summary: G1 It's fine to let your conscience be your guide, so long as Megatron isn't that conscience. A little study in Stockholm and Lima Syndromes.
1. Chapter 1

**08-02-10** I am gradually overhauling this story to fix errors and add a few things. From here on out, chapters I have gotten to will have UPDATED and the date at the top of the page. Some of them (like this one) might be re-updated and that's why the dates could be out of order.

Author's note: This story has an original character. Please don't let that scare you away. I try extremely hard to avoid Mary Sue-ism. Aside from that, the rest belongs to Hasbro and others. I somehow doubt that these disclaimers would be sufficient if anyone wanted to sue but I still feel obligated. Anyway, I am working from the G1 series, which I loved (right up until all that headmasters/targetmasters crap.) It has an T rating because of the swearing and violence later on. I hope you like it (the story in general, not necessarily swearing and violence.)

Come Around  
By Quetzal1

Chapter 1

As he stood in the repair bay, Soundwave was absolutely beside himself with anger and worry, though you would never know it from his demeanor. It was supposed to be a routine mission but instead Laserbeak wound up getting himself blasted out of the sky. The telepath felt helpless looking at his cassette scattered on a table in pieces, still functioning, but barely, and he couldn't hold out for much longer. Starscream had attached an energon regulator to provide smooth, uninterrupted power to compensate for the robotic lifeblood that had leaked out everywhere but that was all he could do. Monitors cast a dull glow across the scene and did not help the mech's mood. As far as he could tell, they did nothing but indicate the raptor's slow, gradual decline toward deactivation. Laserbeak was among the smallest Decepticons and had suffered damage to components and circuits that were too little for any of the others to attempt to repair. The wounds were too severe for his internal systems to fix by themselves. Even if they had the proper equipment it would have been difficult. There was talk of getting Rumble or Frenzy to do it, but they both refused. All those exposed circuits and servos and relays kind of grossed them out, truth be told. Never mind that neither had any real medical training and above all, they were not exactly known for having a light touch. He would request input from another. Perhaps he was overlooking something.

xxxxxxx

"Obviously we need to find someone with the proper knowledge," said Megatron. "What about Dr. Arkeville?"

"Negative. Status: inoperable," Soundwave advised. Dr. Arkeville would have been a suitable candidate were it not for "repairs" performed on him by Starscream's Medicroids. Since the modifications that rendered him a cyborg, he had slowly gone insane. Not only that, but there wasn't time to fetch him from Cybertron anyway. Even if there was, the activation of a space bridge drew the attention of the Autobots and there definitely wasn't time for a skirmish with them.

"Of course." Nothing was ever easy. He should know that by now. "Where there is one with his abilities there are surely others." The right human would be perfect. They were small enough to easily deal with Laserbeak's parts and systems. And when the job was complete, they were easily disposed of. The difficulty would be in locating one with the proper skills. He would give that responsibility to the one behind Dr. Arkeville's decline.

"Starscream, I want you take Thundercracker and Skywarp and find a human who is appropriate to this task."

"What?" The Air Commander had been listening, but with disinterest. It was Soundwave's problem as far as he was concerned.

"I do not want to hear any of your complaints. And besides, I don't really care what you have to do to achieve your objective so that should make it more fun for you. Now get going. "

Starscream had nothing to say to that. He had to admit license to cause as much chaos and destruction as he wanted held great appeal. It was far better than having to maintain stealth the entire time.

"But where are we going to find a human like that?" Skywarp asked. Destruction was always fun, but that would be little compensation if they were unsuccessful and punished for it.

Megatron turned and fixed him with a cold stare. "I don't know, nor do I care just find one and be quick about it!" He was not raising his voice, but it had that flat, annoyed quality which was a warning sign that it would be best to get far away a.s.a.p.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The three jets streaked toward the coast as fast and low as they could without alerting the humans of their presence any sooner than they had to. It was after 8:00 at night, Earth time. Most them would have gone to their homes by now or out to a social gathering spot, Starscream mused to himself. It wasn't as though he and his comrades could go to these gathering places or door to door to find a volunteer. There was a concentration of technology facilities in northern California in an area called Silicon Valley. That seemed as good a place as any to start. Flying at a couple knots below the speed of sound, it did not take long at all to reach their destination.

"You two go start a diversion. I don't want any human _authorities _in my way," Starscream said, emphasizing 'authorities' with same contempt he usually reserved for mentions of Megatron. Humans wouldn't be able to stop him, but they could potentially slow him down. Further, if any Autobots happened to be about, they would be drawn to the obvious rather than snooping around here.

"My pleasure," said Thundercracker, suddenly accelerating away until windows (the ones that didn't outright shatter) for miles around rattled from the sonic boom that sounded shortly thereafter. Skywarp said nothing but instead teleported out of sight. Starscream twisted and unfolded in midair, resuming his robot form before landing gracefully on both feet then sliding to a stop. He paused to admire the deep gouges he had left in the well-tended lawn (Why would anyone put such effort into something so useless as grass?) before getting down to business. There were many structures to choose from. The easy thing would be to rip each of them apart until he found what he wanted, but that would bring far too much attention. Some of the buildings were plainly not what he needed. He scanned a sprawling collection of bunker like edifices off in the distance as an explosion on the far side of a hill lit the sky to a dull orange glow. He chuckled to himself. The other seekers were definitely causing a distraction and he was sorry to be missing it. As the glow started to fade, his sensors spotted a sign. It was partially obscured by a tree but he could easily see the promising words 'Electronic Research' on it.

xxxxxxx

"Boy, you are a mess," Erica Dawes mumbled to the machine that was strewn across her workbench. It used to be a remote controlled apparatus built for the removal of explosive devices. Unfortunately for the 'bot it had served it's purpose exactly as intended. The bomb had gone off, mangling parts of the machine but harming no people. A couple of circuit boards had gotten replaced and now she was in the process of going over the wiring. There was going to be lots of that to change out. A glance at the clock showed 8:45. Wow, she'd done it again. So much for running any errands that evening. It felt like only half an hour ago that a departing co-worker had reminded her not to stay too late on a Friday night and now it was almost 3 hours later. Oh well, she was having fun and it's not like anyone was waiting for her at home, not even a pet. Erica had spent the last several years employed by Terradyne Electronic Research and loved her work as part of a team creating robots for use by organizations ranging from law enforcement agencies to NASA. She could design but specialized in fabrication and repair.

The engineer slid off the barstool-like chair that was drawn close to the bench and stretched her arms above her head. It was time for a break. Starting toward the lunchroom she heard a something. But that wasn't exactly right as it was felt instead of actually heard. The majority of the Terradyne buildings were heavily insulated to the point of being nearly soundproof and featured state of the art security. Erica had not heard Thundercracker's sonic boom (it had registered as a low vibration that she hadn't noticed) or the following explosions or the sirens. She also did not hear the approaching footsteps outside. But she definitely heard it when part of the roof peeled away while a section of wall fell in.

Pure reflex had her fall to the floor and crunch into a ball. As the debris settled she peered up into the darkness and saw two red eyes, or who knew what, glowing softly through the haze of brick and drywall dust and down at her. Erica sat there on the floor staring for a few seconds, unable to move or scream or think or breathe. If Starscream had made his move then, it would have been a lot easier for him. But he didn't, and then his target was suddenly up and charging through the dark toward a swinging door at the back of the room.

The destruction had taken out the power leaving only the dim emergency backup lights and so Erica was tripping and stumbling over pieces of debris and overturned lab equipment as she tried for the door. She was running as fast as she could (which under the circumstances was pretty damn fast) when she reached her destination. Unfortunately, the damage to the room extended a long way from the original opening. The shifting of the roof and walls had gotten the door firmly stuck, a fact Erica became aware of when she crashed into it and then bounced off and back onto the floor. She was only down briefly as near panic kicked in again. Very soon she would be sporting mainly self-inflicted bruises that looked like the result of a severe beating. Starscream extended one huge hand into the room to try to grab the human. Though it was dark to his quarry, his sensors enabled him to see the room as though it were noon in the same way as they had let him scan the building and see her sitting there attempting repairs on the primitive earth machine. Erica was grabbing blindly for items to throw at him when he finally addressed her.

"Stop running! You cannot escape."

It wasn't a situation where you should just roll over and give up. No. _Screw that_, she thought, leaning back and flinging a section of sheet metal, Frisbee style, at the glowing red eyes. She was hoping to hit one of them but came far short as the projectile bounced harmlessly off an area far below that, causing no more damage than a piece of cardboard as far as she could tell. What was that thing? The Terradyne labs were a huge place and there were many areas that she didn't have access to. Was it a secret project that had gone badly awry? It spoke to her, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. It could be a standard warning it was programmed to give, even if it was a tad dramatic. And that voice! It was unexpectedly high and screechy.

"You are severely testing my patience, fleshbag."

Fleshbag? That was kind of over the top. And testing its patience? It sounded almost alive especially when it changed its inflection like that. Impressive work indeed. Maybe she could interact with it and at least get it not to kill her, or stall it long enough for someone to get control of it again.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"Why, merely your assistance." The smarmy tone suggested otherwise. No way was this thing acting on it's own. Somebody had to be speaking to her remotely. That, or they were inside it. What if it was one of the other engineers and they had gone over the edge?

"Well, why didn't you just ask?"

"I do not need to explain myself to you. If you wish to continue your puny life, you will do as I say."

He was certainly arrogant, whoever he was. Fine. There was another door to the side that went to the restroom and also a fire exit. If she could get outside, it would be harder to catch her. Maybe he would give up.

Starscream scanned the human. The readouts of its vital signs indicated it was terrified, as it should be. But he saw something else. It was beginning to turn to the side of the room and lean down and forward as though it were about to run again. He had no more tolerance for this nonsense.

Gearing up to sprint for the other door, Erica was totally unprepared for the bright, purplish beam that slashed through the darkness and into the floor near where she stood. The burst of light temporarily blinded her much like the flash from a camera. However, she distinctly saw a big crater a split second before ducking away and trying to shield herself from the heat and shrapnel created. She was mostly successful but still felt smaller bits of whatever had been hit slice into her. Okay, maybe it she should be more co-operative.

"I missed only because I am willing to give you one last chance. If you refuse I will vaporize you."

"Alright," came the small, tired reply from the darkness. And then the human was standing there with its hands up over its head as though preparing to fly.

"Stop that! I don't have all night for your foolishness. Gather what you require to perform repairs and come over here."

What she required for repairs? Repairs to what, exactly? She could stand a few of those herself, she thought, feeling a slight trickle of blood on one arm.

"What is it you want me to do? It would be helpful to know," said Erica, as she brought her hands down.

Starscream sighed with annoyance. "One of our faction is injured and you will repair him or else."

"Hey, I'm not arguing, but I need to know what to bring," Erica replied. She began to place various tools and other items into a large plastic case, which was previously lying upside down on the floor as a result of the laser blast. Faction? What in the blue hell was he talking about? Who knew? Better to humor whoever was controlling that thing. And what was that weapon? The threat of vaporization wasn't a bluff, that was for sure.

In minutes she had put together what she hoped would be the right items and enough of them. The giant robot was waiting impatiently for her to pick her way through the debris near the hole in the wall where he was waiting.

"Took you long enough," he said, gently picking up the plastic case and storing it away in a small compartment.

Erica remained silent. She was taking in the sight of the machine now that she could see it better in the glow of the lights from a nearby parking lot, and marveling at its manual dexterity as it handled the plastic case. But at the same time, there was something vaguely familiar about the bipedal form towering over her. Then she remembered. Evidently the tabloids had been on to something. For the better part of a year when standing in various check out lines, she had noticed the fuzzy front page photos and headlines proclaiming giant killer machines were on the loose. That is, when more pressing stories like the thousand pound woman marrying the Amazonian Bat-boy didn't take precedence. She was clearly in a world of hurt, a fact that was emphasized further when a hand suddenly swept around and roughly grabbed her off the ground. Her head snapped back not quite to the point of whiplash, but close, and the force of the motion made it hard to breathe. The fingers closed around until only her head was visible and then they began to squeeze in a most unpleasant way. It was a brilliant piece of work. Too bad it wanted to kill her.

"Not so brave now, are you?"

"No," she rasped, trying to make do with the tiny bits of air she was able to inhale. And then she was abruptly tossed into the air to a dizzying height. A shriek flew out of her as she shot upward, getting an excellent view of the Terradyne building where she had spent so many of her days and that wasn't all. The robot that had thrown her ran a couple of steps and then began to sort of … fold and change into something else streaking toward her now as she started to fall. Before there was a chance to understand what had happened, she slammed into the cockpit of an aircraft of some kind, knocking the wind from her body. The canopy immediately came down, trapping her again. Oh, that had hurt, but it said a lot for the coordination of her captor. And what she had just witnessed also told her something else: No way was this thing a creation of humans. And it was only the beginning.

Once she could breathe normally again, Erica tried to calm down and take in her surroundings. Somehow the walking, slightly humanoid form had become what appeared to be an ordinary jet fighter… until you checked out the instruments. Her job had brought her into contact with aircraft before, but this panel was totally incomprehensible. All the readouts and blinking lights made no sense at all. There was a small screen in one corner that resembled radar. If that's what it was, then they were about to be joined by a pair of something else really soon. The military probably wouldn't have any compunction about taking her out in the name of getting their hands on this piece of machinery. Maybe the blips represented missiles and they were about to be blown to bits. Then what were shapes on the screen came into view as more jets. She could make out the silhouettes and burn from the engines as they slid into place on either side and then dropped slightly behind the aircraft she was in. It reacted in no discernible way.

"Friends of yours?" She asked.

Silence.

"Hey."

"You are most bothersome," Starscream grumbled.

"I don't mean to be, but…,"

"What do you want?" The mech interrupted.

"Uh…" What did you say to a machine that was possibly alien and has just kidnapped you?

"Wh..who are you? Do you have a name?" _Yeah, smooth_, she thought to herself with a mental roll of the eyes.

"Starscream."

"Starscream?" That was not a name that brought to mind any warm, cuddly images.

"_Lord_ Starscream to you, Earth vermin."

"I'm Erica." _Earth vermin_? Yeah, that sounded like another bit of evidence supporting the alien theory.

"I don't care."

"Where are we going?"

"I grow weary of you human, and you have a very long night ahead. Perhaps you should take a nap."

"Nap? How about I just sit here and be quiet? I'm not really feeling sleepy right now." Please. Why not ask her to sprout wings and fly? One was as likely as the other.

"It wasn't a suggestion," Starscream said, before slowly depressurizing the cockpit while beginning a series of high g-force inducing maneuvers, a combination that soon rendered his passenger unconscious.

xxxxxx

The trio of Seekers was glad to arrive back at the undersea base. The tower had surfaced and the door was open and waiting for them. The familiarity of their home was always welcome after time spent away and out on the unfamiliar organic world.

"Skywarp, land and transform," Starscream commanded. The gray and purple mech did as he was told.

"Now catch!"

Thundercracker, still in the air, watched in disbelief as Starscream ejected the human and it limply fell toward the black depths of the ocean before Skywarp made a flashy behind the back catch.

"What is wrong with you two?" Thundercracker asked. He did not care about the human, but he did understand that they were fragile, and that he and his wingmates were responsible for bringing back a certain kind and that if this one were deactivated or incapacitated they were liable to end up the same way when Megatron found out.

"Oh lighten up," said Skywarp. "The fleshie is fine, see?" He held up a hand to optic level in front of Thundercracker, who had landed and had a worried expression. Closer inspection showed, that yes the human was breathing, but that was it. In fact it didn't look good at all and it was too late to get another one.

xxxxx

"_STARSCREAM, YOU INCOMPETENT FOOL!"_ Megatron roared, then paused to compose himself before continuing. "I send you on a simple mission and this is what I get?" He was alternating his glare between the inert form he held in one hand and his nonchalant Air Commander. The human appeared to have been badly mistreated and he wasn't sure that it wasn't much closer to dead than his sensors told him.

Thundercracker and Skywarp were standing off to one side but close together as though for protection. Thundercracker shot his companion an "I told you so" glance and then waited to see if they would meet a similar fate.

"Who can tell with these bonebags?" Starscream said, casually. He was no fan of Laserbeak and wouldn't mind if he ceased to function. In fact, it might be preferable.

"Yes and I'm positive you took every precaution to ensure success."

Thundercracker decided to help. "My lord, the human was functional when we left, and …"

"_SILENCE!_" The pale blue seeker was suddenly profoundly grateful that Megatron was holding the human in his right hand so the gigantic cannon on that arm was not aimed at him the way it most likely would have been otherwise.

It was Skywarp who, with relief, noticed the first stirrings. "Look, it still lives."


	2. Chapter 2

**UPDATED: 06-28-09**

Author's note: And here is the next part of who knows how many. Things ought to move a little faster from here on out, as far as the pace of the story goes. That first chapter establishing everything is always kind of slow, with me anyway. And yeah, I know this kind of thing has been done to death but I'm trying to throw a degree of reality in here and make it a little different. Oh, and 98 percent of the characters are property of Hasbro and others. You know which ones aren't.

Come Around  
By: Quetzal

Chapter 2  
Sometimes it IS what you know…

To say that Erica hurt was a grand understatement. Every part of her either ached, was sore or felt like it was maybe broken. Her face was bruised and swollen on one side from crashing into the door, and the rest of her was covered with various cuts, scrapes and more bruises. She wasn't sure what was going on or where, but as awareness returned, it became obvious that she was facedown on a hard surface of some kind. The first thing heard was Starscream at a distance:

"See? Nothing to worry about," he said.

That bastard. There wasn't time to get too angry before another voice made itself known. It was much, much closer and far scarier.

"No thanks to you," it grated.

The voice was deep, gravelly, angry and so very near. Erica tried to push herself up into a sitting position and slipped as the surface beneath her tilted hard to one side and she rolled/fell down to another, coming to rest on her back. Oh shit, this just kept getting worse! Once again she was in the hands of a giant mech, only this one looked supremely pissed. Its face was sharp featured and very severe looking. The downward angle and shape of the eyes suggested a far nastier personality than anything she had encountered so far. Her breath caught as it looked directly at her.

"Well, well. So you do still function," it said, sounding pleased in a way that oddly contrasted with the cross expression.

"I..I guess I'm ok. Just k-kind of beat up," Erica said, scooting back as far away as she could get. Enormous fingers curled upward behind her, keeping her from falling. She could hear the low whir of servos as they moved. It seemed wise to be very cooperative with this one. She noticed her remark caused a look to be directed at Starscream. Good. Maybe this guy would kick his ass.

"Time is short so I will get to the point. I am Megatron, leader of the Decepticon Empire. You have been brought here because you have skills we require." And then after shifting his gaze to Starscream and what she guessed were the other two jets that had joined them on the way to wherever she was now, he added: "Or should I say, you'd _better_ have the skills we require." Even if the threat was not directed at her it still scared her more than she had ever been in her life.

"Right, one of you is injured or something?" Erica said, trying to sound like she did this kind of thing all the time. It would have been more convincing if she could have gotten the shaky sound out of her voice. _Be co-operative and act like you have some sense. Stay on his good side_, she thought. They needed her so maybe she was safe for now, relatively speaking. And she recalled a common sentiment heard on the job whenever there was a problem that was exceedingly difficult to solve: _You gotta be smarter than the machine._

"Correct, and we do not have time to spare on discussion."

"Let's go. Starscream has my equipment," she said simply. Megatron was rather surprised at this response. There was no refusal or terrified babbling or attempts at bargaining for some petty thing humans were always desiring. He had no way of knowing that she would actually have paid him for the chance to see the inner workings of any one of them. Once it seemed a fairly sure thing that no one was going to kill her, her curiosity and amazement started to override terror. Given her line of work, it wasn't shocking. A group of sentient machines! They made the stuff she worked with look like Legos. She mistook his surprise for disapproval and reminded herself to be careful to mind her manners.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I meant _Lord_ Starscream." The mech's face changed from merely somber to angry and Erica thought her heart was going to stop.

"_Lord_ Starscream?" Megatron repeated with sarcasm. Yes, she had definitely said something that he didn't like, but she was slightly relieved to see that he wasn't looking at her any more.

Everyone in the room was staring at the Air Commander who suddenly appeared uncomfortable. The human noticed that the other two jet guys were having some interesting reactions. The blue one shook his head slightly as though disgusted and baffled by this turn of events and the really dark gray one was grinning insolently.

"I can't help what assumptions these primitive organics come to," Starscream said, defensively.

"Yes. I'm sure you did nothing to further the incorrect assumption that you are anyone of consequence," Megatron said, agreeing while simultaneously insulting the seeker. Starscream said nothing further. "Now that we have corrected this misunderstanding, let us attend to the business at hand."

Erica was taken to what looked like a repair bay and deposited on the bench next to Laserbeak.

"Wow, he's really torn up."

"Don't belabor the obvious, just repair him," Megatron said.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After having Laserbeak moved to the floor so as not to worry about Erica falling off the bench and losing more time or possibly injuring herself to the point of incapacitation, the real work began. Rumble was assigned to assist her and to identify and explain the parts she didn't recognize or understand (and there were plenty) or to look them up in the various schematics and diagrams stored in a computer. Soundwave was also nearby to terminate the human should she get any ideas about sabotage. The others left, realizing that standing over her the whole time was going to intimidate her to distraction, but that didn't stop them from watching developments via a view screen in another room.

Erica was amazed at the intricacy of the smaller mech (and he had an interesting name too, though she didn't see any evidence of a laser anywhere around his beak.) There were so many moving parts and circuitry, conduits and wires. The computer components seemed to be ok, it was more his mechanical systems that were the problem. The conduits for energon transfer were severed in many places. She did not really know what energon was beyond some kind of fuel, but it didn't cause any reaction on the Geiger counter she had brought along as an afterthought. In fact, it was sort of pretty, but she didn't like getting it on her hands. It made them feel like they were going to sleep.

There were gears and cogs that had slipped their grooves, hydraulic lines blown out and a mass of some sort of wires or something that had been fused together.

"What happened to him?" Erica asked, not looking up from the snared and melted wad, and expecting to be told to shut up and keep working.

"The Autobots got 'im," said Rumble.

"Autobots?"

"Yeah, they hate us."

"Why? And who are they?"

"Get back to work," Soundwave said in his weirdly modulated, inflectionless voice.

He had not been merely watching. He had easily read the human's thoughts as it worked. There was no detectable hint of treachery yet. Mostly what he was getting was fascination along with pain caused by whatever had occurred during her abduction, a desire for something called a "snack" and also a growing need to take something called "a pee." This pee thing was coming to the forefront of the human's thoughts more and more often. Pretty soon it would be a distraction.

It wasn't long before he had what this was explained to him as politely as possible after the human asked about restrooms. How disgusting! And of course they had no such facilities. It was decided that the best thing would be to utilize a part of the ship, which had been rendered useless to them when it drove itself into the ocean floor. Ravage had the dubious privilege of escorting the prisoner to the area and back, actually giving it a modicum of privacy. This appalling business was not anything he had any desire to know about. Erica was jumpy the entire way back to the repair bay. Ravage had an unpleasant habit of growling all the time and insisted on walking behind her. When she would look over her shoulder to see what he was doing, metal teeth snapped at her as though to hurry her along. She didn't try to speak to him and wasn't sure if he was a dog or some kind of cat.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Laserbeak returned to the land of consciousness from stasis lock two hours later. As his optics activated and flickered on, the first thing he saw was a human. Oh slag! He remembered being shot now. He must have crashed and now he was going to be picked apart by the revolting meat beings. The human was standing right in front of him looking rather pleased. But then, it was joined by Rumble and Soundwave (the latter giving him a gentle pat on the head.) Laserbeak could see parts of himself scattered around and understood that he was not yet fully repaired.

"How are you?" The human asked, extending a hand toward his head. Laserbeak snapped at the hand and squawked. The human snatched the offending appendage away and jumped back several feet. "Ingrate," it muttered.

Soundwave gathered the remaining parts of the bird and put them back on the bench as Megatron entered, followed by Thundercracker, Starscream and Skywarp.

"What is the status?" Megatron asked.

"Internal systems repaired. Initiating structural restoration."

"Are the internal repairs correct?"

"Satisfactory," replied Soundwave, sounding neither pleased nor displeased.

Erica was very much relieved. She never would have gotten it without help, but still…not too shabby. Her satisfaction was short lived as she noticed the other three 'bots observing her while their leader was occupied. The looks she received varied from disgust (Starscream) to curiosity (Skywarp) to disinterest (Thundercracker.)

And then Megatron turned and regarded her with that malevolent gaze of his, eyes glowing bright red. The slight smile made it even worse. Erica suddenly felt even smaller and more vulnerable.

"Nicely done, flesh creature."

"Thank you," she said, bowing forward slightly.

"Unfortunately for you, your services are no longer required." And then she was looking up and into the barrel of the cannon on his right arm.

"But I did what you asked."

"Yes, your co-operation is most appreciated."

"Why can't you just let me go?"

"You have seen far too much. It would be dangerous for that information to make it back to your scientists."

"I guess promising not to tell wouldn't help?"

"I'm afraid not."

Good lord, but that cannon was huge! There wouldn't be enough of her left to put in an aspirin bottle. Shit, think of something! Erica's mind was racing incoherently and then seized upon a desperate suggestion.

"Why couldn't I just stay here?"

"For what purpose? We don't need a pet," said Starscream, haughtily.

"Oh, get bent you son of a bitch!" Erica said, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. That wasn't what she meant to say at all. She was tired, cold, hungry and scared and it just came out. It might have been the smartest thing she'd done all night, because Megatron was actually laughing. Emotionally wrecked as she was, Erica did not fail to note that even his laugh was disturbing. Who would build such a thing?

Starscream actually knew the meaning of the insult that time and was apoplectic.

"How dare you, you insolent earth germ!?" He screeched at her and then pointed the laser he had used earlier at the Terradyne labs. Megatron smacked the arm wielding the laser down. He had gotten himself under control. That was the funniest thing he'd seen in a while.

"What did you have in mind?" He asked, suddenly indulgent.

Erica suspected that the mood might not last long so she'd better make it good.

"Okay, I fixed Laserbeak right? Why couldn't I do the same for the rest of you?"

"That was a special case. He had parts that were too small for any of us to repair and we did not have the proper equipment for him, a situation that will be rectified immediately."

"Yes, but for the rest of you there's probably stuff I could do faster than you could."

"Such as?"

"Well say you go out and get all shot up by these, what did you call them? The guys that hate you?" She said, turning toward Rumble.

"Autobots?"

"Yeah, right. So these Autobots shoot you and you're all messed up. Because I'm small I could get to the damage with less invasiveness because I can work around something rather than having to pull it out first to get to the injury. Also that would save time in an ordinary case and could mean the difference between life and death when it's more serious.

"Our technology is far more advanced than yours. There is much you know nothing about."

"True, but I can learn. What else would I have around here except time to study?"

Megatron stood silently eyeing the small human. It made a good argument. There were possibilities in this idea. It would certainly enable them to strike sooner at the Autobots or sources of energy if they weren't always taking so long for repairs and recovery. And the Autobots had humans assisting them, which had made the Decepticon's objectives more difficult to obtain at times. This might merit further investigation. However, he'd have to be on the verge of death before he'd allow some flesh creature to poke around at HIS internal systems.

"Think about it. The functioning you prolong might be your own," she added, trying to sway his decision.

"Very well." And then he suddenly bent over her as his hand swept around and snatched her off the floor. He wasn't quite as rough as Starscream but she still wished they would stop doing that. Again she found herself enclosed in a slowly tightening grip. She was close enough to those scorching red eyes she would have sworn she could feel heat coming off them if she wasn't so busy being afraid her innards were about to be squeezed out like toothpaste.

"But be warned, if I so much as _suspect_ you of anything deceitful I will crush you, and it will not be quick." Megatron said in a low, deliberate voice, squeezing harder and harder, stopping just at the point where he could avoid breaking something. The human was terrified. Its green eyes were huge and its heart was going a mile a minute. But, despite the terror, it was able to reply with another unexpected answer.

"So be it."

Megatron crouched and put Erica back on the floor. He'd had his fun. Better to stop now before he scared it to death. She stumbled a little and then sat down hard, gasping for breath. Too much had happened and she was so tired. Maybe it would have been better if he'd shot her. That would have been fast, anyway. But at least she had maintained her self-control. Barely. She was beginning to think it wasn't something he saw too often.

"Ravage will show you to your quarters." And she was forced to get up and jog/stumble after the snarling…whatever he was. Ravage led her to a part of the ship that looked to be mostly unused but in better shape than the part she had seen earlier. Erica was still oblivious to the fact that she was deep undersea in a crashed alien spacecraft. The door slid up and she stepped into a room that was big enough to serve as a hanger for several medium sized earth planes. It was actually a closet. There were some giant (to her) metal boxes and then she saw a pile of what looked like padding used for moving, only huge. She crawled onto it and pulled the edge of one piece over her like a blanket. It was stiff and scratchy but better than nothing. She would live to see at least one more day. For now it was enough. There were so many questions she hadn't got to ask. She tried to think about the deal she'd just made with what might be, no, probably WAS, a mechanical devil but a sleep that was almost unconsciousness overtook her instantly.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: You know what belongs to whom by now, so I won't bore you with that. I hope you're enjoying it so far. It's kind of looking like this story will be a long one. I'm going to keep up the posting every Friday for as long as I can, but I'll probably catch up with myself and then it'll be a little longer. Anyway, feel free to leave comments and give my lone reviewer some company.

Come Around

By Quetzal

Chapter 3

These Things Ought to Come With Instructions

"Maybe it's dead."

"No, I think it's normal for them to do that."

Rumble and Frenzy stood there observing Erica who was facing away from them, still sleeping. She had been out for only a couple hours and the two mechs had been trying to wake her for several minutes. She was starting to stir and was hoping she had dreamed the whole thing it. Maybe it was a rainy Saturday morning and she could just go back to sleep. Maybe the whole thing was some nutty nightmare caused by too much spicy lo mein late at night. A large fingertip poking between her shoulder blades dispelled that fantasy.

"Hey," (poke)

"Wake up," (harder poke)

"OW! Stop doing that!"

Frenzy withdrew his hand. "Megatron wants to see you in the repair dock,"

"Already?" she asked, slowly getting to a sitting position atop the pile of padding and wincing at every move. All that sprinting around in the dark and crashing into stuff coupled with nearly being crushed twice really did wear on a person.

"We don't question the Boss and neither should you, if you wanna live," Rumble answered.

"Boy, you guys are fast to whip out the death threats,"

Neither of the robots saw this as unusual. Such had been their manner for millions of years.

"Listen, I'll be right back. I have to…you know,"

"Hurry up," Ugh! Humans and their nasty ways. They watched as Erica slowly limped out of the room and disappeared around the corner into the corridor.

"How long do you think it'll be before it's terminated?" Frenzy asked.

"I don't know. It actually did a pretty good job on Laserbeak. You know, for an organic." Rumble said with a noncommittal shrug.

"Yeah, but, Megatron isn't real forgiving when someone screws up,"

"Okay, a week,"

"What? Are your circuits fried? I'd be surprised if it lasts a day,"

"No way,"

"Wanna bet?"

"You're on,"

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It hurt to walk. It hurt to even blink. Her brief period of sleep only seemed to have aggravated everything. And now there was a headache pounding behind her eyes. Erica was a mess all around. Good thing she had not come across a mirror. If she could see what she looked like, she'd probably feel even worse. There was also the matter of being filthy. The lab coat she'd been wearing had all manner of crud on it and the rest of her clothes were not much better off. A hot shower would do wonders. And then it occurred to her that if there were no restrooms, there probably wasn't anything like a regular shower here, either. Or any food.

And what could Megatron possibly want from her already? Who knew, but she'd better hurry and get going. No sense in having him pissed at her from the start.

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_**POW!**_

Erica stepped into the repair bay and was met by a blinding flash of laser fire directly in front of her. She stumbled backward and fell in an attempt to escape it.

"When I summon you I mean NOW, not at your leisure!" Megatron snarled.

Well so much for not pissing him off.

"I'm sorry, it won't happen again!" she said, as she got up.

"See that it doesn't,"

Starscream smirked at her from several yards behind where Megatron stood glowering, but said nothing.

"I've decided that before any more of my time is invested in you, it needs to be proven that you are worth the bother… and I have my doubts," Megatron said in a withering tone.

Erica wondered where this sudden change of demeanor came from. Last night it had been 'nicely done,' now she was persona non grata. Maybe he was like this all the time. Could a sentient machine have some weird kind of bipolar disorder? Whatever his problem, it was certainly obvious that now wasn't the time to ask about breakfast.

"So I've found another task to see if you actually know anything or if you were just remarkably fortunate before," he continued, gesturing at a bunch of pieces and parts heaped together in a large pile in the middle of the floor. What used to be a drone for simple tasks on board the spacecraft was in far worse shape than Laserbeak had been. "We have disabled the security measures so that you may use the computer to access service manuals, but that's all the help you'll get," he finished, with another gesture. This time it was toward the outsized computer. Erica quickly climbed a small staircase to a platform that had been built to allow her to reach a keyboard that had been wired to the main panel. The bit about the security measures was a lie, however, though for once not intentional on Megatron's part. When Erica experimentally tapped a couple of keys she was blasted off the platform and up against a nearby wall. She felt like she had been smacked upside the head with a board and was pretty sure she smelled something burning.

"Starscream, I thought I told you to disable the protective charge,"

"I must have forgotten. Sorry about that," His expression and tone were just far too innocent to ever be believed. The shock the human received was unintended, however it was another suitable obstacle, Megatron decided. Obviously the strength of the charge had been reduced because the organic continued to live. But still… that Starscream was getting more insubordinate all the time. This was, no doubt, some sort of petty revenge for the previous encounter. He would be dealt with appropriately later.

Erica did not hear this brief exchange as her ears were still ringing. She sat up, rubbing her head where it had whacked the wall. What the fuck!? Seriously! How sadistic could you get? After a few moments she got to her feet for the second time in five minutes and went back to the pile of parts.

"What are you waiting for? Fix it." Megatron snapped, and then leaned against a wall to see what she did.

She couldn't tell anything about the object with it all piled up, so Erica began to sort out the parts and place them near one another in the way it looked like they went together. This device was a total wreck, but looked to be a much simpler construct than Laserbeak. There were far fewer of the computer components and complicated parts. But a lot of what remained was heavy. The armored pieces were especially bad. She found a small panel with a plate affixed that looked like identifiers for the unit. It was obviously not original because it was shiny and was etched with regular numbers instead of symbols. The computer could tell her what it was. She struggled a while but managed to drag the panel onto the platform. Once there she eyed the keyboard warily.

"It's safe, you coward," Megatron said, noticing that the remark earned him a narrow eyed glance. He was beginning to make it angry. Good.

As she entered the numbers on the id plate into the computer, it occurred to her that at some point they must have seen fit to convert the maintenance manual to English. All the information on Laserbeak had been in symbols that were totally meaningless to her, but she'd had Rumble to translate it. After a few seconds the screen displayed a full color 3-d image of what the ruined drone used to look like.

She continued on with her work. It was hard to think with not enough sleep, being beat up, hungry, plus a scrambled feeling from having been electrocuted and slammed into a wall. But… adding a pair of giant robots looming over her and deliberately standing around in her way made it almost impossible. What was their deal? From Starscream she might expect it, but Megatron had seemed fairly reasonable, even if he was scary as hell. At another point she was turned around, absorbed in the task when a second pale, purple laser blast hit the floor maybe a foot from where she was crouched. Oh, wonderful. Now they were going to take potshots at her. She jumped every time the beams exploded nearby, but would not acknowledge the mechanoids doing the shooting. What a pair of jerkoffs. And anyway, these rays must not have been near as strong as the one Starscream used when she was captured because it wasn't leaving big, smoking craters. But it would still probably hurt. A lot.

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Several hours passed and Erica was beginning to falter. She was getting dizzy and shaky and her nerves were getting frayed. If she'd known that she was only going to be allowed a couple of hours to sleep, she would have tried to stay awake. The laser shots were coming closer to her and more frequently. Despite the rough start, the drone was about 60 percent of the way to being repaired. There were some parts missing and some welding to be done, but it was steadily progressing.

"Your time is up," said Megatron, pushing himself away from the wall where he'd eventually settled again, and coming over to where the drone was laid out.

"What?" Erica asked. Since when was this being timed?

"This is unacceptable!" Megatron declared, after looking at her work for a few seconds and then kicking the partially repaired mechanism across the floor, shattering it into multiple parts again.

"But…"

"But what? You are hopeless, as are all of your kind,"

Where was all this coming from? Erica was so confused and demoralized. She thought she did pretty well for never having seen this stuff before. Evidently not. She would probably be vaporized very soon now. To hell with it. She sat down on the floor and waited.

Megatron noticed her disengagement. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Silence.

"I'm waiting.…"

"Screw you," came the very resigned reply. Starscream just gaped at the human, incredulously. Oh, it was dead now for sure.

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In a room not far away, Frenzy laughed. "Bye-bye human!"

"Shut up! It ain't dead yet," Rumble (who was not a good loser) replied, as they watched the events unfold on the large view screen.

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Much to the shock of everyone, Megatron chose to ignore the remark. "You have one last chance to redeem yourself. Grovel and perhaps I will spare your worthless life,"

Erica sighed tiredly. "No,"

"YOU DARE DEFY ME!?"

"Yup." She was still sitting on the floor, facing away from him. She did not want the last thing she saw to be those crimson eyes flaring at her. The end was surely near now. In her mind she was tearing her way through every prayer she knew while waiting for the flash and fire or crushing blow she was certain was coming. She was even attempting prayers she didn't really know, getting as far as 'Hail Mary full of grace…' and then being unable to come up with anything besides "help me win this stock car race," _Yeah, good one Dawes, blasphemy at a time like this, _she thought There was a noise that kind of sounded like a flash unit on a camera powering up, only really huge. Probably it was that big ass cannon. It was actually the hand held laser gun, which had been set to such a low power that it barely worked. Ordinarily it would be silent but it was strained from the reduction in power and Megatron had been using it quite a bit in the last couple of hours. One last shot was fired but this one flashed past her left arm and just skimmed its surface, leaving a burn on the sleeve of her lab coat that looked not unlike the results of leaving an iron on it too long and something like a very bad sunburn on her skin. Erica jumped and grabbed the arm letting out a short cry that almost sounded like a bark.

This was it, but damn it, she'd go with a little dignity. She could feel and hear big heavy steps approaching. Maybe he was going to stomp on her. She was sorry for all the bugs she had killed in the same fashion, and asked to be forgiven for that too. Insane, the things that cross your mind when you're sure it's all over.

Megatron studied the human as he towered over it. It was sitting there with its knees drawn up and its arms around them, one hand rubbing the fresh wound. It was shaking but not giving in. One had to admire that a little, meeting what you believed to be your end with a degree of dignity. Although, really what else was there? It wasn't as though it could fight back. And if he really wanted groveling there was no end to the ideas for torture that would undoubtedly achieve it. His sensors indicated that it, no, _she_ was in a far greater state of agitation than last night. Something that stood up to him (in a sense) was at the least deserving of the proper terminology. Time to stop before she had a stroke or something.

Erica was listening to the silence in the room, eyes squeezed as tightly closed as she could get them, preparing for the end. What was he waiting for? Maybe he was thinking of the most slow and painful way to murder her. This was way worse than when he was yelling and making threats.

"Congratulations, you pass," Megatron said, in an altogether more cheerful tone. That got her attention. The bewilderment was priceless. These creatures were so easily perplexed.

She waited a few seconds to see if it was some sick joke before finally looking up at the white and silver mech, confused. "What?"

"You can work under pressure and think for yourself. Also you have a spine, although if I were you I would be careful how I used it or someone might rip it out for you," Megatron said, thinking of the sullen 'screw you,'

Geez, could these guys speak more than three sentences without a death threat slipping in?

"And might I add, I was serious about coming immediately when you are summoned,"

"You're not going to kill me?"

"Of course not,"

'Of course not'? What the hell, man? Like she should have known all along?

"You may return to your quarters. I will send for you later and do not keep me waiting." And with that, Erica was left alone.

She flopped down onto her back and lay there for several minutes, too tired to cry in frustration and confusion, even though she really wanted to. Would the craziness ever stop? Was every day going to be like this? If all Megatron was going to do was scare the crap out of her and screw with her mind maybe it would be better to be dead. After she got herself settled down a little, the extremely baffled young engineer struggled to her feet and began to leave. Something blue caught her eye as she plodded toward the door. It was her backpack! She had had the presence of mind to toss it in the box with her tools and supplies the night before. It felt heavy. She opened it and was never so happy to see a half eaten peanut butter sandwich, bruised apple, and partially filled bottle of warm soda as she was then.

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"No!"

"Starscream…."

"I won't do it! It is beneath me!"

"You should be grateful that I don't do something far worse," Megatron said, matter of factly.

"This whole idea is ludicrous,"

"And that is yet another example of why you will always remain an underling. You fail totally to grasp the bigger possibilities,"

"Ha! Just because I don't embrace your lunacy doesn't mean that…."

Starscream was cut off mid rant when his leader punched him in the back of the head.

"You will do as you're told whether you embrace the idea or not,"

"One day I…" Starscream began, as he got to his feet.

"One more word, and _this _day will be your last,"

And not for the first time Starscream was looking into the barrel of the fusion cannon that could turn him to slag in an instant. "You will do as I order and the human had better return unharmed."

Skywarp, who had also been assigned to this mission, was standing over in a corner and trying not to laugh. His air commander seemed to have some kind of logic processor malfunction when it came to dealing with their leader. He just could not grasp the concept of keeping quiet and doing as you were told. And that was probably why the parts of the mission were divided as they were. Although really, if he hated humans as much as he professed, he should be happy with the way this was arranged.

Starscream turned and walked away, looking surly, and mumbled something to Skywarp about sending coordinates as soon as he found a suitable location.

Megatron looked pleased by the seeker's downtrodden manner. Having to do something so menial was a much better punishment than a good beating in this instance. Now it was time to see what kind of reaction his human had to more subtle provocation.

"Soundwave, retrieve our guest,"


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note: When I saw that review from Death Scribe for chapter 3 last week, it really freaked me out. I don't want to give anything away, so just let me say I had this chapter roughed in almost a month ago (including the part related to the review that caused the aforementioned freaking out) and had not told anyone about it, nor had I shown it to anyone. I was tempted to change it but then decided not to because it would mess up a bunch of stuff that's coming later on. Pretty weird, huh? Anyway, enjoy. Transformers are property of Hasbro and others and the rest is mine.

Come Around

By: Quetzal

Chapter 4

Stealing Home

Soundwave entered the closet that was the human's new home. It had been several hours since she had last been dismissed. He would be interested to see how this little experiment turned out. Personally, he did not care to have a human occupying their base, but it was not his place to question the decision. He observed Erica, who was atop the pile of padding again and very much off line, and wondered if she did anything besides recharge. He was under orders to be civil and was considering how best to wake her without any undue stress. He finally slid one hand beneath the padding and bounced the entire pile until the human stirred. She suddenly slid off the pile and onto her feet, thinking it was an earthquake or something.

"Megatron's summoned me again, huh?" She asked, rubbing her good eye.

"Affirmative," Soundwave replied and then left the room with Erica running in a stiff, ungainly fashion after him and trying to clear her head. She was the kind of person who would hit the snooze button on an alarm clock two or three times before she got up. The days of that kind of thing were definitely over.

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Erica recognized the room from when she had first arrived. But instead of a crowd of 'bots, it contained only Megatron and Skywarp. Soundwave had quickly disappeared after finishing his task.

"Greetings Erica," Megatron said, "Feeling better?"

"Yes, thank you." Whoa! He had gone to the bother of finding out her name, and wasn't just calling her 'flesh creature' or 'human.' What did that mean?

"I realize our accommodations aren't suited to your needs, so I am sending you with Starscream and Skywarp to get whatever you require to make things more hospitable." Before Erica could reply, he continued, "But first I have something for you," and upon that announcement he tossed a small object down toward her. It flashed in the light as it fell. She managed to catch it and was very dismayed to discover something that looked an awful lot like a collar.

It was kind of heavy for its size. The black leather portion was soft like chamois and about as thick as her thumb. It was stuffed with something squashy that had the consistency of Play-Doh but expanded back to its original shape after a bit. Odd-looking silver colored hardware secured the ends. As a finishing touch there was a large chromed Decepticon emblem approximately the size of a policeman's badge dangling from it. Something was stamped on the back. Arkeville Labs. Erica had never heard of it.

"Is this what I think it is?" She asked in a dubious voice, holding the item at arms length examining it.

"What you think is immaterial. You will wear it." He didn't seem to care if she liked it or not (as usual,) so it must not have been a gift. She wouldn't have to worry about him being insulted, then.

"But why do I have to wear a collar like a dog?"

"There are things more important than your pride, Erica," Megatron said, beginning to sound irritated.

The tone of his voice and the pattern of past conversations told her what was next so she took care of it herself by asking:

"Like my puny life?"

"Exactly."

She sighed. This was humiliating. But he was right, it would be a dumb thing to die over after all she had been through so far. _At least it's not metallic pink with rhinestones and jingly bells._ _Wear it now and make him choke on it later_, she thought and placed the collar around her neck. It wasn't tight enough to be uncomfortable, nor big enough to slip over her head, and the emblem was approximately over her heart. Was that some kind of subtle point? When the ends snapped together, she could hear the clasp whir and hum for a couple of seconds after that.

"What is this thing?"

"That, in addition to identifying you as Decepticon property… MY property, contains a tracking device and a termination device,"

She wasn't going to dispute the 'property' part, as much as it rankled. He owned her (for now) and she knew it. It would be insane to provoke him into some kind of undoubtedly violent and painful demonstration to prove his point. At least he hadn't renamed her 'Spot' or something yet. And besides, there were more immediate concerns. "What do you mean by 'termination', exactly?"

"Should you try to remove it by cutting or any other methods, the collar has sensors that will detonate an explosive charge within it. If you try to escape or fall into the wrong hands, it can be detonated via remote control," Megatron opted to leave out that it could be detonated via remote simply because he felt like it. She could probably take it that far herself.

"How do I know this thing won't go off if I fall and jar it, or if I get shocked again or something?"

"You'll just have to trust me," Megatron replied with the evil-looking half smile that was becoming very familiar to his guest.

"Not fucking likely," Erica muttered under her breath.

"Oh, I disagree. You just need time, now get going."

Erica had nothing to say to that, but she made a mental note to refrain from mumbling smart-ass remarks in the future. These guys must have some serious audio sensors. Megatron watched as she and Skywarp left. These creatures, while very primitive, were not entirely stupid. It was surprising that she had not put up much of an argument about the device considering how humans liked to fancy themselves such individualists. However, he was pleased with how she already knew when to back off merely by a change in his vocal inflection. Even after eons Starscream had yet to learn that much.

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Skywarp stood on the elevator platform next to his charge for the evening. The human was distracted and plainly annoyed by the collar. She had pulled it out from her neck and then flicked a finger against the emblem with a quiet 'ping' sound. The look of disgust was unmistakable. He could understand, he supposed, but even so it wasn't that big of an inconvenience and it allowed her to leave the base.

"You would have never seen daylight again if you hadn't put that on." It was the first thing he had ever said to her directly. She seemed mildly surprised.

"No, I guess not, and in more ways than one probably. But still…"

The platform finally reached the top of the tower where the door had already opened out.

"Wait here," Skywarp said.

Erica watched as he attached a couple of storage pod devices that looked like jumbo missiles on each wing and then stepped out onto the platform before transforming into something that looked every bit like an F-15 fighter.

"C'mon out, but be careful,"

She stepped through the tall, narrow passageway and found herself hundreds of feet above a moonlit ocean. The wind was strong and felt like it could easily knock her right off this perch.

"Wow," was all she said. It felt great to be out in the fresh air, and what a view! She could have stood there for quite a while, taking in the reflection on the water and all the stars but Skywarp wasn't that patient.

"Let's go," he said as the canopy opened. Erica carefully ducked under a wing and eased her way to the front. There was no railing, but the platform was wide enough that she could avoid the edges. She climbed up the side of the jet and got into the seat.

"Fasten the harness," he said. He fully intended to heed Megatron's warning that the human had better return unharmed or else, so he wasn't taking any chances. In fact, being the primary transport made him a little nervous but it was a chance to prove competence that might get him a better position one day. Oh, say, a position like Air Commander, maybe?

Once the harness was securely latched and the canopy down, the engines fired and throttled up to maximum range. Skywarp released the brake and rocketed down the platform and off the end, aircraft carrier style. Erica felt a little nauseous as they dropped off the end but was then gently pushed back in the seat as the jet began to climb and turn. This was a lot nicer than the last time she had flown. Unbeknownst to her, if Thundercracker had been there to see that by the book launch instead of being out on patrol, Skywarp would never have heard the end of it

"So how are we going to do this?" Erica asked. "I have five bucks on me and that's it."

"What are you babbling about?" The seeker didn't understand about half of what the human said.

"How are we going to pay for this stuff?"

Skywarp cackled in an unpleasant way that made Erica suddenly feel kind of dumb. "We will just take what we want," he said.

"Steal, in other words,"

"You can call it borrowing if it makes you feel any better,"

Erica happened to notice the time. 1 a.m. "You know there won't be anyplace open this late,"

"That's what we're counting on,"

After having gotten a reasonable amount of sleep, Erica was able to think more clearly than she had in a while. Things had certainly changed since she left for work Friday morning. From a quiet, normal life to becoming what was probably the same thing as a pet to a giant scary machine who threatened her life regularly. Now she was off to commit grand larceny and no telling what else with one of his henchmen, all while wearing a bomb around her neck. If she ever got out of this alive and not in prison, she'd never call her usual Friday nights of Chinese food and old movies boring again.

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Add property damage to grand larceny for a start. Erica just stood there in amazement when Skywarp kicked a big hole in the back wall of the sporting goods store they came down behind first. Evidently subtlety wasn't important to him.

Bricks flew everywhere and alarms instantly began ringing.

"Don't just stand there, go!" Skywarp said, shooing her toward the gaping hole in the wall. "The authorities will be here soon, and it's preferred they see us as little as possible.

So this was shopping now. Erica, forgetting her gimpyness for the time being, ran into the back of the store and began throwing whatever looked useful into a cart she found knocked over into a display of weight lifting equipment. Mostly it was some warmer clothes. It was cold down in whatever they were living in underwater. As she passed a customer service area she spotted the phone. Yes! Now she could call…who?

The cops would probably not be much help and were already on the way anyhow, but she could at least let her parents know she was still alive. Someone had surely contacted them by now regarding her disappearance. The phone wasn't dead but it was emitting a shrill, static-y noise. Damn! So much for that.

She had not been inside long when she heard Skywarp calling her. He was bent over, peering through the jagged hole in the wall.

"Get out here! We have to go!"

Erica shoved the cart outside and then watched as the contents were dumped into one of the storage pods. Skywarp didn't bother to transform. He just crouched so that she could crawl into one hand. He promptly placed his other hand over her in the fashion of a child catching fireflies and then leapt into the air. She was suitably impressed. They could fly in robot form too. You'd never suspect given their heavy, slightly clunky appearance.

They came down several miles away in a grove of trees behind another shopping center.

"Did they see us?"

"Not enough to matter, let's try again,"

"Hang on a minute, I need to think about this,"

"What's to think about? It's a little late to be having an attack of conscience. "

"It's not that, it's just that we need to be a little more organized. How much are we going to take?"

"You're supposed to get whatever you need to live I guess,"

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Within a few hours, the pair had amassed quite a haul. They had gone to meet Starscream twice to drop off what they had collected whereupon he would take it back to the base. He complained the whole time and Erica was fully expecting everything to be pretty beaten up when she got back. For the time being he chose to ignore her completely, which was fine. It would still be nice to know why he hated her so much, though.

Skywarp wasn't much help when it came to answers. During all the time with him she had tried to find out more about her captors but he wasn't forthcoming. If it required an answer beyond one or two words she was told to ask Megatron.

"But I really don't want to talk to him any more than I have to," she said after about the fifth time she was instructed to do so.

"Why not?"

"Why not? You live with him and have to ask me why not? Well for starts, because you never know what kind of mood he's going to be in and he's scary when he's NOT all pissed off."

Evidently this human was smarter than it looked. If she only knew the entire story of their leader, of how many deaths were on his hands. Frankly, Skywarp didn't really like to think about it too much himself, and he was far from innocent when it came to killing. Erica would be petrified if he were to enlighten her on Decepticon history.

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Most of what Erica thought of as their crime spree went pretty smoothly. The gray and purple mech smashed an opening and then she ran in to grab whatever she needed. It was like some kind of demented game show. And though she was loathe to admit it, it was kind of fun in a way. The police always seemed to feel the need to announce themselves with sirens so they were not all that hard to avoid. There was one slight incident.

The pair had been a little slow getting away from one store and had actually been shot at. She was a little disgusted that the police didn't even try to communicate with the 'bot first. Sure, it would have been pointless, but they didn't know that. Skywarp had even taken a bullet or two on one wing, though he assured her it hadn't really caused any damage to speak of and it certainly didn't hurt. It did merit revenge, though. That particular police department lost two cruisers when Skywarp turned and blasted them to bits as he disappeared into the early morning darkness.

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They had found a supermarket, which would be the last stop of the night before returning to the base. It was there that someone got the drop on them. Just as the mech was winding up to kick a new entrance, there was a bright white flash of light. Purely out of reflex honed by millions of years of warfare, Skywarp simultaneously crouched and raised one arm to fire the gun mounted there, mistaking the flash for some kind of laser fire.

Erica recognized it for what it was. Someone had taken their picture. She looked around and saw something by the edge of a dumpster near the end of the building.

"Over there," she said pointing, thinking maybe the mystery photographer could be caught. Her escort had other ideas and let loose a barrage of shots that melted the corner of the dumpster.

A fairly young looking man with a very large camera hanging from his neck leaped out and began trying to sprint to safety. He needn't have bothered. He had barely gone ten feet when another round of fire sent him sprawling face down.

"Skywarp! What are you doing?!" Erica yelled as she ran toward the man.

"My job," was the indifferent reply.

She fervently hoped that the guy wasn't dead. When she got close there was a sickening stench created by the burnt flesh on his back. He gave a quiet, pitiable groan, still alive for the moment.

"You almost killed him!"

"Almost?" And then the seeker began to sight his unfortunate victim in again.

"No! Don't!" She said, getting between the two of them. "All we have to do is take his film. If he tells anyone what happened, he's got no proof so they'll just think he's a mental case."

Skywarp considered this for a moment. "I think he should be eliminated,"

"So what if he saw us? What about the security cameras in all the stores we've been to? We're on video all over the place I bet," Erica said as she grabbed the camera, which was a very expensive 35-millimeter model.

"I put out a jamming signal that would reduce everything to so much useless static,"

Skywarp replied with some pride. Well, that would explain the phones not working.

"Couldn't you keep the alarms from going off too?"

"Of course I could,"

"Well why didn't you?"

"What would be the challenge in that?"

Challenge? Unbelievable. Leave it to her to get stuck with the adrenaline (or whatever they had) junkie. After a moment Erica was able to pop the back open on the camera and pull the film out in a long strip.

"There. It's done."

"How did it discover our location?"

"It? _He's_ got a police scanner on his belt. I think finding us was just a lucky guess,"

"We need to change our strategy,"

"Can I call some help for him?"

"No. The alarms will bring someone to aid him." _Of course it will be too late by then. _He added mentally.

The victim was named Larry Watterson. He was a reporter for a local paper and, as had been surmised, he had listened to the events unfolding on the police scanner he carried. Staking out the strip mall had been a guess and he was just about to give up and try someplace else when he heard a jet engine that sounded unusual. He hid behind a dumpster and was awestruck at the sight of a gigantic robot suddenly coming into view beneath the streetlights. What was that thing? Maybe it was some secret military weapon that had gone awry. As a journalist, it was his job to pursue the story. Pictures would be an excellent start. In his haste and excitement to get a good shot he totally forgot to deactivate the flash unit. Running had been his next mistake, and it was his last. Larry died before Erica and Skywarp had finished robbing the store.

When Erica came out she wanted to check on him again but sirens were getting very close. No time. She hoped he would be ok. Sensors had already told Skywarp he had been saved the bother of eliminating this risk, but he didn't feel obligated to share the information. Let his leader's pet / experiment think he had been merciful.

In the air again, she yelled up at Skywarp, peering at him through the gaps between his fingers; "Why did you have to shoot him like that? He was only taking pictures,"

"Listen, you really need to take these questions to Megatron. You'll see that I was merely doing what had to be done,"

"Fine," She had some questions for Megatron all right, but would he give her any answers? And could she find the nerve to ask in the first place?


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: And so it continues. I hope you're liking it and thanks for all the nice comments (those can do wonders for motivation sometimes.) Transformers belong to Hasbro and a bunch of others, the rest is mine.

xxx

Come Around  
By: Quetzal

Chapter 5  
"'_Step into my parlor,' said the spider to the fly…"_

xxx

As Erica was getting near her room, she began to encounter some new mechs. These guys were big and mostly bright yellow. They looked at her but said nothing and she did likewise, unconsciously moving over closer to the wall as she continued down the hallway. She was partly right in her earlier guess. Most of the items that had been collected were unceremoniously dumped in a big pile in the middle of the room by Starscream, but nothing looked broken as far as she could tell. Skywarp had simply left his storage pods next to the pile. Standing beside all that was another of the big yellow 'bots.

"You must be Megatron's human," he said in a vaguely snotty manner.

"Yeah," she replied with a tired sigh. Word really traveled fast.

"I am here to show you the improvements to your quarters."

It did not take long to see all that had been done. There was a unit that took ocean water and somehow refined and purified it. According to the mystery 'bot, it was far more pure than any municipal source. Beside that there was what had to be the biggest water heater ever.

"Here is the power conversion and reduction hub. The conduit terminates in several power cables that will allow the functioning of your earth devices." The mech said, gesturing at a complicated looking apparatus and the big conduit that ran from it and then up the wall opposite the water pipes. The conduit ended in many long power cords that had outlets on them. Beautiful! Erica had wondered if there would be any place to plug in the appliances she had gotten. These guys thought of everything.

The tour continued. One of the metal storage boxes had been turned upside down and had a doorway cut into one side. There were water pipes going into the opposite side.

"This is for hull decontamination and disposal of fuel conversion byproducts," He continued, disdainfully.

Decontamination? Fuel conversion byproducts? Just what the hell was in there? Erica approached the new room cautiously. She peeked around the edge of the doorway and saw that the water pipes came up to a couple of very large valves before converging overhead in a single section of pipe that she could have easily crawled into. There was a sunken part of the floor beneath it with a very big hole that had been covered by a grate. Wow, it was a shower! Sure, it was big enough that she could have washed her Honda in it, but that was okay. On the opposite side of the room was some kind of partially enclosed gadget she didn't recognize. She looked a little harder and a few feet away, discovered a trap door in the floor that covered a hole, which was mostly covered by another grate. What was this? Next to the trap door was a large button. She pushed it with her foot and jumped when water noisily shot out into the hole from hidden jets at a pressure that would probably strip paint. Ah! Now she got it. Fuel conversion byproduct disposal, a.k.a. toilet… of a sort. It might need a little adjusting or adjusting to. Either way, she would not have to make any more forays to the ruined part of the ship.

Megatron must have really been intending to keep her around or they wouldn't have done all this. Of course if he killed her, they would already have accommodations for a replacement ready to go.

"You guys did all this in the few hours I was gone?" Erica asked, impressed.

"Copying and improving upon earth devices is not a challenge for us."

"This is really great...uh, I didn't get your name earlier…"

"I am Hook, and I was following orders," he said turning and heading for the door.

"Thank you, Hook."

The machine ignored her. Well, he might be an uppity asshole with the same superiority complex as Starscream, but who cared? She had a shower and electricity now.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Setting up housekeeping didn't take all that long. The entire arrangement took less than a quarter of the closet. The kitchen was a few small appliances, hotplates, little hotel room style refrigerators and other necessities arranged on and under a pair of folding tables. A tent served as the bedroom and provided a little privacy. Another smaller tent was used for storage of everything else. Floor lamps were placed here and there to add to the dim illumination that came from the lights embedded in the walls. Home sweet home.

Compared to the padding, the air mattress and sleeping bags in the tent were like a feather bed and she would have been asleep very quickly, except that she couldn't stop thinking. Would that guy Skywarp shot be alright? How badly had he been hurt? The wound looked pretty damn serious to her. She hoped for what was probably the twentieth time that he was okay and that the police found him in time. The seeker had not shown a bit of remorse about what he had done. Before that had happened, she was actually starting to sort of like him. He didn't make threats and wasn't unnecessarily nasty to her. Just another reminder that to forget what these things were capable of would be a really bad idea.

And then there was her family. She looked at a newspaper she had found lying around on a counter in one of the stores. 'Woman Missing in Wake of Bizarre Accident' was announced by a small headline near the bottom of the front page. There was a god-awful photo of Erica obtained from her employer and an article that said she had disappeared after an apparent explosion at the Terradyne labs. The article went on to say that maybe she had wandered off in a daze and encouraged readers to call the police if she were spotted. Yeah. Sure. Anybody could have seen that the damage to the building came from outside and there was nothing to suggest an explosion other than where Starscream had fired his warning shot, and that wasn't enough to totally wreck the place. Why all the lies?

Rrrrgh! So many questions!

Her parents were undoubtedly worried sick. The company or the police surely would have notified them. She made sure to call them and her little brother every Sunday evening whether she had anything new to tell or not. To them California might as well have been on another planet from Illinois. A place like this ought to have a phone or something. But then just what _was_ this place? The damaged part she had seen surely wasn't intentional when they built it. Maybe it was damage sustained in some kind of attack? But an attack by who? Autobots? And what were they? The name didn't sound very threatening, especially compared to Decepticon which was 'deception' with a 'c' tossed in unless she was spelling it wrong. It was a fitting name. She shoved the paper under the air mattress and tried to get comfortable, but sleep was slow in coming.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The base was quiet. It was late at night or early morning by earth standards. Most of the forces were out implementing the early stages of the latest plan or taking a recharge. Megatron liked it. It gave him time to process things and further his studies of the planet without being interrupted for one thing or another. He was a firm believer in knowing his enemies, not that humans were much of a challenge. It made no sense, this refusal or inability to unite as a single planet and thereby become more of a force to be reckoned with instead of being broken up into a bunch of feeble little states. Of course it wasn't like they'd had anyone to be a force against until now. No, humans chose instead to squabble over borders and natural resources and religious nonsense. What they needed was a good leader. In the course of their history there had been several individuals who attempted to take over, but were unsuccessful. It appeared that anyone with this ambition was viewed as evil. How well he understood that. With Transformers and humans both, visionaries were never understood in their own time.

It figured that Starscream would bring him one of the more peculiar specimens of humanity. He could understand the greedy ones and the ones with grandiose plans. They were even easier to exploit. But his human was showing no indications of either so far. Given free reign to have anything she wanted, Erica had only taken what looked to be necessities and those were pretty plain. Skywarp had informed him that she had never so much as expressed a passing interest about obtaining anything other than that, but had many questions about everything else. The seeker had done as he was told and gave her no information. Megatron knew that sooner or later she would come to him with her queries, because there was no other option. He would give her the truth as he knew it along with some outright lies and see how long it took for her to turn against her own kind. It wouldn't happen right away. She clearly did not trust him, which would be expected. But once he had that trust and loyalty, it would be amusing to see just how far she would go with it. And he was sure he could gain it eventually. There were already signs. She had been unhappy over the shooting of that other human, but she had also shown concern for Skywarp when he had taken a little damage. Yes, it was all a matter of time.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Erica had expected to be summoned fairly soon after her return, but nothing had happened for days. In that time, most of the injuries had healed or were getting close and she was getting a little bored.

While she had been waiting for whatever came next, there had been plenty of opportunity to consider the situation. So far there had been no visible way to escape and even if there was, the collar made it a very bad idea. Since she was already known as "Megatron's human" it was probably likely that the others were under orders not to mess with her too much. But it would be so much better for her if she could make the others like (or at least tolerate) her without any underlying threat. Did anything ever happen around here that didn't involve threats and intimidation? The first thing to do would be to try to fit in. Of course there was a limit on how far that could be taken.

The military style structure of their group was obvious from the beginning and it got her thinking about when she had joined the Air Force ROTC as an extracurricular activity in high school. The recruiter who ran their detachment told them all about the real thing and how badly people in civilian clothes stood out when they first arrived for basic training. Once you had a uniform you blended with everyone else, thereby escaping notice that could lead to being screamed at and/or punished for real or imagined infractions, or being volunteered for the worst details. When she was out "shopping" Erica had swiped several pairs of black cargo pants and the shirts that went with them and also a utility belt with all the pouches like the cops wore from a uniform and supply store. Later boots and gray tee shirts were added. She decided the outfit complemented the dumb-ass collar nicely and looked suitably sinister. Megatron didn't seem to be the sort who would like a nice pastel floral design. She wasn't either, actually. If she appeared the same all the time, just like the 'bots did, maybe she could blend and no one would notice her so much after awhile. Then she could make her self noticed when she was ready. It was worth a try and she had to start someplace.

No one had said she couldn't leave the room. Maybe it was time for a little walk. She had never tried going outside on her own until now. The door might be locked but to her relief it slid up almost noiselessly.

The first stop was the repair bay. Some things had been moved around but mostly it looked the same. The box with all her stuff from the lab was in the same place as last time. It did not take long to outfit the utility belt with the most commonly used small tools and odds and ends. The various pouches went well with the pair of tasers already attached. She wasn't sure what she would do with those just yet, but they had felt like a good idea when she spotted them in a display case. The platform was still there and the keyboard was still connected to the computer. There was no way she was going to touch it right now, though. Not after the last time.

The place just went on forever, it felt like. Just one hall after another lined with doors. Or maybe she was just way out of shape, or maybe both. And as far as she'd wandered, she had encountered no one. Where was everybody? She stood still and listened. There was nothing but the quiet hum of the environmental systems. On one wall there was a viewport but it was pitch black outside. She looked at her watch. Well of course it was dark at 1 A.M. Her sleep schedule was all kinds of messed up. Inside with no indicators of the outside world, it always felt like afternoon to her. She continued to wander.

Toward the end of the corridor there was a larger than normal doorway. The room looked dark but there were occasional flickers of light like a tv. Might as well check it out.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Information flashed across the screen at unintelligible speeds, but Megatron was absorbing it with the ease of someone reading the Sunday paper. It had taken longer than he thought but his sensors finally told him he was not alone.

"Are you just going to skulk there in the shadows all night?" He asked without turning.

"I'm not bothering you am I? I can come back later," Erica said, backing out of the doorway. Crap! If she'd known it was _him,_ she would have stayed away. On the other hand he didn't seem in too nasty a mood right now.

"Not at all, in fact I've been expecting you," he said, finally looking at her. It would have been fine with her if he'd kept his eyes on the screen. Just blinking once in a while would have made his gaze a lot less creepy.

"You have?"

"Are the additions to your quarters suitable?"

"Yes, very, thank you."

"The Constructicons do excellent work."

"Yes they do."

"Perhaps you should sit down," the mech said, indicating an area on top of the console he was sitting beside, and then extended a hand close to the floor. He noticed this produced an uneasy look and she actually backed up another step as though she were about to run. Sensors indicated that internally, she was on her way to being as distressed now as during their first meeting.

"I am not going to harm you. I would have done it already if that were my intention," Megatron said, trying to sound reassuring and not annoyed, remembering that this human was especially sensitive to his inflection.

Erica quickly crossed the room. If he had to come after her, the good mood he was in would probably change real quick. As she was lifted to the console, the sudden movement upward made her stagger just a little.

"You should work to improve that balance. You would not last five minutes in battle."

"I never expected to _be _in battle, I guess."

"Which would make your elimination that much easier. But now for the reason you are here. Skywarp tells me you have many questions."

"Well, yes actually," she said, stepping off onto the console and sitting down away from the edge, crossing her legs beneath her. _What else did he tell you, that blabbermouth, _she thought, trying to remember if she'd said anything that would get her in trouble.

Megatron waited in silence, eyes glowing dimly.

_Where do I start?_" Erica wondered. The beginning was as good a place as any.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: And here we are again. This is probably the last of the slower moving chapters for a while. A lot happens next time. Thanks for reading and for the nice comments. Transformers belong to Hasbro and a whole lot of others, but not me baby.

xxx

Come Around  
By: Quetzal

Chapter 6  
Twenty (Thousand) Questions

_"If'n you ain't the grandaddy of all liars!" – Stinky Wizzleteats _

xxx

"Where are you from? Are you some kind of secret government project or did the Russians create you or what?" Erica asked.

"We are far beyond the understanding of primitive Earth science," the mech said, sounding a little insulted. Our race is from the planet Cybertron."

"You're aliens?" She said, in a quiet, awed voice that wasn't really questioning, and then:

"I knew it! I knew there had to be life on other planets and it wasn't those little gray guys with big heads and eyes," she said, sounding very happy at this new knowledge. "So why are you here?"

"Our home has been embroiled in a civil war for millions of your years."

"Millions? Really?" Again with the quiet awe. Humans were so easily impressed. "Sorry if this is rude, but… are _you_ that old?"

It was amusing that she would project their peculiar social mores about age on an alien race. Why would he be offended by curiosity about such an irrelevant fact?

"Yes. I have been in this war since the beginning," he said, leaving out the little fact that it was him who actually started it. There were several seconds of silence as Erica tried to grasp the concept that these guys had been on the planet, lasers, spaceships and all, before there were even cavemen.

"What's it all about?"

"There are two factions on Cybertron, Decepticons and Autobots. There are also neutrals but they hold no importance. These factions co-existed peacefully until our governing body began to fall under the influence of the Autobots and started discriminating against Decepticons. They wished to keep us beneath them, under their control." His eyes began to glow a little brighter. "But we would not bend to their will."

"And that led to war?"

"Correct. The war went on for so long that eventually Cybertron was nearly depleted of energy. The Autobots left to find new sources and we followed. We cannot allow them to get the advantage or they will destroy us."

Erica was amazed. A race as old and advanced as this and yet they were fighting over the same old bullshit as anyone else.

"Then you came here?"

"This wasn't necessarily our destination. Another clash damaged both ships. We crashed here, as did they. Both spacecraft were beyond repair. In time we were able to build a new cruiser but they managed to thwart our attempt to leave and it came down here in the ocean so now we use it as a base of operations."

"Wait a minute. All this is a spaceship?"

"Yes," the mech replied, again amused at the reaction. Erica began to look all around the room, amazed. Understandable when one considered that the humans had only recently constructed a re-useable spacecraft of their own. Well, if you considered something that didn't really leave orbit around the planet a true spacecraft. Pathetic.

"What do you do here now? Are you building another ship?" That she had to see.

"No, we have solved the problem of getting back to Cybertron. What we are doing now is collecting energy to send back there so that we may move the war in our favor. We have been on this planet acting in secret, disguised as Earth vehicles and objects. It was an ability developed early in the war. Decepticons and Autobots are both referred to as Transformers."

"What are these Autobots like? Rumble said they hate you guys, but why?"

"They hate what they cannot control. They want to crush us and will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. They are vicious and ruthless."

"Does anyone know about them?"

"Ah, that's another part of the problem. Such talented liars are they, that they manage to insinuate themselves with governments of whatever planet they are on, presenting themselves as friends, as protectors."

"Protectors from what, you guys?"

"Yes, they spread lies and paint us as evil. Forces are mobilized against us before we have a chance to refute any of it."

"Which forces you to do whatever you have to do to get by and that just makes it look like it's all true."

"Correct. And humans have been very quick to condemn us. If any of us were to fall into the hands of some government we would certainly be destroyed in the name of _science_," Megatron said, pronouncing the last word with enough scorn that Erica suddenly wanted to mover farther away from him even more than normal.

"How can you be so sure? Wouldn't most people would be amazed to meet an alien life form? I am," Erica said.

"You cannot possibly be that naïve. While _you_ may be impressed, most Earth dwellers are fearful and we all know what would happen because it almost did."

"What?"

"Are you familiar with the Roswell incident?"

"That was you guys? Seriously? What happened?"

"One of our faction crashed there," Megatron lied. "He did not have a chance to recover before he was attacked by the humans' military. He was on the verge of being deactivated and then would have been dissected by your scientists and engineers, but a raiding party managed to get there in time to prevent that."

_These guys crash a lot_, Erica mused before asking, "What happened then? What did you do to them?"

"What would anyone do? Let us just say that a suitable reminder was left to warn them off any such attempts in the future."

"But it didn't work, did it?"

"No. Not all of your kind learn as quickly as you do,"

"If they got him out, what was all that stuff in the pictures?"

"Something made up to explain all the commotion in the area, no doubt."

"What about all the UFO sightings around there?"

"We don't know for certain, but it's suspected that it's some sort of Autobot trick."

"Why would they do that?"

"Possibly to condition the planet to accept the idea of off world entities, so that when they chose to reveal themselves it would be less of a shock." Another lie, but still a plausible scenario.

Erica sat there silent for a moment. This certainly cleared up a lot…if it were true.

"But why is all this happening now? If all of you have been hiding so long, why are you suddenly coming out into the open?"

"Cybertron is in a very bad way. The need for energy has reached desperate levels. The Autobots are stepping up their actions and have quietly enlisted the aid of humans."

"What is Cybertron like? Is it anything like here?"

"No, nothing like this mudball of a planet. Would you care to see it?"

"You mean like, go there?" she asked, choosing to let the 'mudball' comment slide.

"Perhaps one day, but for now I meant this," Megatron said, reaching out to tap a few brightly lit buttons. Static came up on the main monitor but faded out to reveal a landscape unlike anything Erica had ever seen.

It looked like twilight. Lights glowed and reflected here and there on the shiny metallic surfaces. Curved strips of highway wound around towers and carved airy arcs through the sky.

"Impressive, is it not?" Megatron said with obvious pride.

"Yeah," she replied in a faraway voice, understanding that she might possibly be the first person in the world to have seen an inhabited alien planet. Of course if she could have seen it from a distance instead of a surface view, she would have known that probably everyone on Earth had seen it before.

"What are you going to do to get the energy you need to fix it?"

"For now we shall continue as we have been, stealing it where we can."

"How are the Autobots getting theirs?"

"They mislead the humans into giving it to them."

"Can they get back to Cybertron?"

"That is one thing we have in our favor. While they may have energy, they cannot take it anywhere."

"And you can get it there, but you don't have it."

"Precisely. We manage to get what we need to power ourselves and our base here, but excess to send back can be very difficult to acquire."

"What would happen if you lost and the Autobots took over? I mean, if we're just handing over the energy to them already, what's their problem?

"Once we were out of the way and there was no one for the humans to turn to, the Autobots would reveal their true spiteful natures. The populace would be enslaved and they would completely bleed the planet dry of energy before destroying it and everyone on it," Megatron said in a bizarrely satisfied sounding way.

"You know, you sound kind of happy about the idea," Erica said, frowning at him with uncertainty.

"It would serve them right."

_Who's the spiteful one? _She thought.

Megatron noticed the doubtful look he was getting and then said; "However, this is not something you need to fear. Eventually we will crush the Autobots."

"What do these guys look like, anyway? How would I know one if I saw it?"

Megatron reached over and tapped a few more buttons and once again the screen began to display several different images. Some were still photographs and others were short bits of video. The transformation process was an amazing thing to watch. Erica had only gotten a good look once when Skywarp did it. Whoever created these guys were the kings of all engineers, that's for sure. Erica had pondered how you'd go about making such a thing happen even if the mechanism wasn't thinking for itself and kept running into problems with small things like how fuel and hydraulic lines could be routed and connected, never mind the rest of it. Megatron explained who each of the enemy mechs were and why they were so dangerous. It was weird. She would hear what sort of atrocities each had committed or was capable of, and yet they looked friendly. There was nothing at all that looked menacing about any of them. Of course maybe that was part of their sneakiness. It was a lot to get your mind around. And then it got a little stranger.

"But what about you?" Megatron asked, sitting back and propping his head up with one hand to regard Erica. His inquiry seemed to knock her off balance a little.

"Huh? What about me?"

"What are your origins? Do you have a mate or progeny?" He already knew the answers thanks to the pitiful computer security measures on this planet. He just wanted to see if she would lie.

She snorted in an amused way before answering. He sounded like an ultra-proper version of her Aunt Betty who was always asking about her love life. "Well, there's no mate. Even good potential candidates for that are hard to find. Definitely no progeny nor any interest in them. I was born in Illinois and lived there until after college, which was when I came to California because I got offered a job with Terradyne."

"Where are your creators? Do they still function?"

"My parents still live in Illinois with my little brother," and then after a short pause she asked: "Do you think I could call them?"

"No."

"Why not? I know they're worried and it would be so much better for them if they knew I was alive and okay."

"Would it? Just what would you tell them? I don't think that knowing you were with us would put their minds at ease."

"Sure it would, a little maybe. They wouldn't think I was dead in a ditch someplace that way."

"By now the authorities within your government have contacted them. The communications system is being monitored and your creators are being questioned and kept under surveillance. For you to contact them would be to intensify all of that. You would only be making their lives more difficult."

Erica thought of the newspaper article with all the lies. Yeah, the feds probably knew something really strange was going on. If the Autobots had already gotten to them, then they'd have a good idea of what that something was.

"There has to be some way I can…"

"No, and I suggest you disabuse yourself of the notion right now. They are better off thinking you are dead."

"That's crazy! How can it be better?"

"Erica, things are about to change. Our war is going to be in the open before much longer and sides will be chosen."

"So?"

"So you have already declared yourself to the side of evil in the eyes of your human compatriots."

"I haven't declared anything!"

"But you did. By asking to stay here, you declared yourself to me, and the Decepticon cause."

"It was that or death! I didn't know offering to be a tech was taking sides in a war that has nothing to do with me!"

"I believe you have a saying here… 'Ignorance of the law is no excuse.'"

"Alright, fine, what if I did?"

"As I said, our struggle will be public knowledge soon. And contrary to what you may think, our war will have everything to do with you. We will be branded the enemy and anyone with us will be considered traitors. You wouldn't want your family to be considered guilty by association would you?"

"No." Erica said, the anger deflating like a balloon. If what he said was true… but it was unthinkable that she'd never get to see or talk to them again. Maybe after the war was over, or averted somehow.

Megatron watched as she sat there. He could practically see the ideas forming and then being rejected.

"Are you sure that there's not some way to convince everyone that you aren't what they think?"

"It's much too late for that. Things are already in motion."

"And there's no way to prevent this war?"

"No. But perhaps you can take a small measure of comfort in the fact that you know the truth and are on the right side."

_Yeah, fat lot of good that does me_ _or anybody else on Earth_, she thought bitterly.

"Unpleasant as it may be, you do see that I am right, don't you?" Megatron asked, not unkindly. He was finding this pretending to care very challenging.

"I don't know. Maybe you are. It's not like there's a whole hell of a lot I can do about it either way."

"Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

Erica knew she had other questions, but they had slipped her mind in the face of what she had discovered. She sat there leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees and her head in her hands looking down. The emblem on her collar caught the light and suddenly reminded her of something else.

"What's Arkeville Labs? Is that some other humans who are helping you?"

"Dr. Arkeville was helping the Autobots. He was responsible for the device that brought Cybertron into Earth's orbit causing unspeakable amounts of destruction."

"Wait, _that_ was Cybertron?" Of course Erica remembered this. Everyone thought it was Armageddon. The news reports all said that is was a massive rogue comet or something, and that NASA had it all under control. In the meantime there was epic destruction until an explosion moved it away.

"What would have possessed him to do such a thing? And what happened to him?"

"I am certain that the Autobots must have promised him something and the reason is unknown. As to what became of him, we aren't certain. He is presumed dead."

"Wouldn't this prove that you guys aren't the bad ones?"

"One would think so. Despite the fact that we were responsible for the explosion that returned Cybertron to its rightful place, the blame for everything was placed on us and by then we did not care."

"If he's dead, how did you get this?" She asked, picking up the collar and dangling the emblem at him.

"I decided it would be wise to find his laboratory and prevent anything like that from happening again. Of course we took whatever looked like it could be valuable to us in the future."

"And is all this kind of stuff the reason why some of you really seem to hate me?"

"Why would you be any different from what they have encountered so far?"

"But I am,"

"That has yet to be proven."

There was just no winning with this guy. It was starting to feel like there was no winning at all.

"And when do I get a chance?"

"You're feeling sufficiently repaired and charged?"

"Yes."

"Be in the repair bay at seven a.m. and we shall begin."

"Okay. Can you tell me something else?"

"What?"

"Who is _your_ creator?"

Megatron paused for a few seconds before answering.

"There are some who believe that all Ttransformers were created by Primus. _I, _however, think this is so much religious drivel perpetuated as yet another means of control. The true answer is probably lost to time."

_Yeah, you don't seem like you'd be a religious fella_, Erica thought.

"And now I think you should go back to your quarters and prepare for the morning," Megatron said, once again extending the hand to lower her to the floor.

Erica got up and stepped carefully across the gap between the console and the waiting hand. It was a pretty good drop to the floor. Once down she looked around at the room again. It was a lot of information to take in. And how could she tell what was true? She was almost as confused as when she first arrived, and it showed.

"Have patience Erica. In time you will understand and I think you may even be happy here." _You might as well try because you will never leave,_ he added silently in his processors. And then, as one last thing to further confound her, Megatron actually reached out and gently patted her on the head. Seeing the huge hand above her and getting lower, she simultaneously turned her head and pulled her shoulders up, kind of looking like a turtle. ICK! She could have done without that. The sooner these guys were won over or just didn't notice her, the better.

The best opportunity would come a lot sooner than anyone expected

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Remember Ren and Stimpy? Stinky Wizzleteats was the character who sang Happy Happy Joy Joy.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's note: I like this one. It almost wrote itself, as opposed to the last two, which were like digging a ditch. Anyway, enjoy. Transformers are property of Hasbro and others. The rest of it is mine. Incase you don't already know this, maintenance stands are these platforms on wheels that are used around airplanes so you can get to hard to reach places. If you're that interested and want to see some, do a Google image search for "aircraft maintenance stand."

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Come Around  
By: Quetzal

Chapter 7  
"_What goes up must come down."_

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The next several weeks passed, for the most part, uneventfully. That's not to say nothing happened. Erica had begun her campaign to blend in and win over. Some parts worked. After awhile hardly anyone really paid any attention to her comings and goings around the base. The winning over was a little more difficult, but not without progress even when it wasn't intended.

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Rumble had been sent to retrieve the wing mounted storage pods that were kept in the closet Erica was calling home. The small mech and his red counterpart, Frenzy, were thus far the most responsive to her friendly overtures so long as no one else was around. It was dinnertime and she paused to say hello to him when he came in before returning to the task at hand.

He found the pods and was carrying them out when his olfactory sensors recognized a familiar odor. It was roasted flesh of some kind, but it smelled a little different than it did when it had been hit by laser fire. He looked around and realized the scent was coming from the earth devices. His optics zoomed in and there in a skillet was a big chunk of some kind of meat. He left to finish his job and then find Frenzy as fast as he could.

"You're crazy," Frenzy said, upon hearing the news.

"I'm tellin' ya, it's true. I saw it," Rumble replied.

"No you didn't."

"I did too! It was right there frying."

"You're the one that's fried."

"Oh yeah? C'mon, I'll show you."

Erica was seated in a lawn chair getting ready to devour dinner when she felt the vibration of approaching steps. The door slid up to reveal Rumble and Frenzy. What could they be up to?

"Hi guys," Erica said, as she cut off a little chunk of steak and popped it into her mouth. When she did this, Rumble reached over and poked Frenzy in the arm.

"What's up?"

"Uh, we forgot somethin'," Rumble lied.

"Hey, what is that you're eating, Scre…Erica?," Frenzy asked, trying to be nonchalant and then nearly forgetting and using the name that he and Rumble had secretly bestowed on the day of the repair bay incident with Megatron and Starscream. Telling Starscream to get bent won their approval but from the time she got away with flagrant defiance of their leader they had taken to calling her 'Screwdriver.'

"What, this?" She asked, pointing at the plate with her knife. "It's a steak."

"What're those made from?" Frenzy asked.

"It comes from cows. You know, the big four legged animal you see in herds standing around in fields eating grass?"

"These cows… they're flesh creatures, right?"

"I never really thought about it, but yeah, I guess they are. Why do you ask?"

"No reason."

"And you like it?" Rumble inquired.

"Oh yeah, I love steak. And ribs. Most meat is good if you cook it right." And then remembering her manners; "Would you like to try it?" she asked, holding the plate out toward them. She knew they didn't ingest anything besides energon but maybe the politeness would be worth something.

"No, we gotta go," Frenzy said, as the small duo suddenly turned and left.

Erica noticed that they didn't find whatever it was they had forgotten, but shrugged and continued her dinner, unaware that her campaign to win over the mechanoids had just gotten a little boost.

"See? I told ya!" Rumble said when they got further down the corridor.

"Who woulda guessed?" Frenzy mused. "Ol' Screwdriver's a cannibal."

That was just so gross and so…cool.

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Optimus Prime was having a difficult day. He had been in a meeting with the leaders of the humans' military for hours and could not convince them that it would be in their best interests to leave fighting the Decepticons to the Autobots. He could understand the feelings involved, however. It was their planet after all, and they wanted to defend it.

"We will not continue to stand by and do nothing," said General Martin Sherrod. He was there by order of the President himself as commander of operations to combat the Decepticon menace.

"I appreciate your position General, but you must understand that we are best suited to handle this," said the Autobot leader.

"You've had your chance. The Decepticons are still here and their numbers are increasing. It's time for a change of strategy."

"What do you propose?"

"We want to work with you. Our combined forces would be more effective than either of us alone."

It made sense but it also made the Autobots' job harder. Battle was difficult enough without having to watch out for the humans at the same time. And the ways the Decepticons could take advantage of this truly disturbed the Autobot leader. Perhaps something could be arranged that would keep them away from the main fight but would also allow for their participation.

"If you refuse to co-operate we will continue without your assistance," General Sherrod said, not telling them anything they hadn't surmised already.

Jazz was taking in the discussion when a possible solution came to mind.

"Optimus, I may have an answer," the smaller mech said.

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The lessons were going well. Erica had learned a lot already. Starscream and Hook might be a couple of arrogant jerks but they knew a lot about the inner workings of a transformer. Starscream had been a 'bot of science at one time and it showed. It would have been nice if he could have refrained from calling her "Fido," though. Hook didn't bother with name-calling, he just had the habit of answering her questions in a way that suggested each one was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. When she wasn't learning from them there were plenty of manuals on the computer to study and also the organization of her notes into something she could use as another guide. The repair bay was accumulating more and more items that would enable her to go about her work. The Decepticons had been bringing back various items off and on ever since she had asked Megatron about getting some tools that were human size. The seekers had brought back items like aircraft maintenance stands stolen from a Naval air station. The Constructicons had grabbed an entire Snap On tool truck and brought it back, figuring it would be a lot easier than trying to remove all the tiny items hidden inside. She was almost ready for anything.

There were also more Decepticons showing up. Three additional jets had been added. They were kind of odd looking with those pointed heads and they tended to hang together in their own little group. All of them seemed to have much more sour personalities than the others. They did not go out of their way to give Erica any trouble and she was fine with that. There was also Astrotrain and Blitzwing who by virtue of being triple changers, were particularly interesting from an engineering point of view. Personality wise neither of them was the brightest of the lot. None of them were trying to be her pal, but that was better than being threatened. Only Starscream still gave her problems on a regular basis. Mainly it was the comments. He never missed an opportunity for a snide remark at her expense. She tried to tolerate him thinking it might sit well with the others that she didn't go to Megatron every time there was a problem.

One morning while going to retrieve the carcass of another drone that she was going to try to restore to working order, she came across Starscream, Thundercracker, Blitzwing and Astrotrain. They were having some kind of discussion that stopped when she got close as the 'bots all noticed Starscream getting quiet and watching her.

"Gentlemen," Erica said with a nod at them.

"Hello Fido," Starscream said.

"What's the word, Starscrap?" she returned smartly. Thundercracker tried not to laugh. Starscream shot him an angry glare.

"Tell me. What's it like being Megatron's pet?"

"Not so bad. What's it like being his bitch?"

That broke them all up except the target of the remark. The red and blue mech made an adjustment to the blaster on one arm and fired. Erica dodged the first shot but not the second. A null ray blast interrupted the electrical functions of a mech and rendered it temporarily inoperable. At the lowest setting it induced a sort of seizure in organic creatures. Erica twitched and jerked like a landed trout for a couple of minutes before lying deathly still.

"Oh, you are gonna get it now. You killed it," Blitzwing said.

"You moron," Thundercracker said, already worrying about the consequences.

"Relax, I did no such thing. All I was doing was teaching the human that she needs to remember her place." He leaned over Erica and saw that she was already coming out of it. "And what did we learn?" he asked.

Erica said nothing and continued to act more dazed than she was. Starscream turned and started to walk away. He had done his job too well. Thanks to his teaching, Erica now knew that the joints of the mechs could be a weak spot. She rolled up onto one arm, unholstering one of the tasers and turning off the safety. She aimed it at the back of one leg. _Wait for it…wait for it…NOW! _She thought, as she saw the gap appear in the solid metal. The electrodes shot through the air and landed on their mark, mostly by luck. Squeezing the trigger delivered 200,000 volts to the neurocoupler inside the mech's left leg near the knee joint. Starscream felt a sting and then suddenly could not control himself as his leg collapsed under him and he crashed to the floor.

"I will destroy you for that!" he screeched trying to aim the null ray again but having a hard time because of the leg which had now started jerking violently. So fixated upon one another were the two enemies, that they didn't notice when their audience suddenly scattered to get out of sight as Megatron turned the corner and headed toward them.

The tyrant knew that these two did not get along, but thus far they had limited themselves to verbal barbs. Now his Air Commander was laid out on the floor with one limb out of control and his ongoing experiment was staggering and leaping about to avoid the flailing leg while continuing to deliver high voltage shocks.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!?" he bellowed at them.

Erica nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound and Starscream didn't react much differently. Both of them started trying to explain themselves at the same time.

"SILENCE! I have had it with the two of you and this constant bickering!"

"Your pet needs to learn her place. I will not tolerate insults!" Starscream said as he got up, still trailing the wires from the taser.

Erica decided to take the super contrite route instead of arguing any further. She snapped to attention and then bowed "Forgive me mighty one. My behavior is inexcusable," she said, staying bowed.

"Oh please, can you kiss that aftside any more?" Starscream muttered.

"Shove it," came the reply.

"I SAID SILENCE!" Megatron reached out and grabbed the seeker by the wing with one hand and pointed to the repair bay with the other, before snarling at Erica : "Get in there and don't come out until I tell you to."

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About half an hour later Starscream limped his way into the room. He wore a resigned but angry expression and said nothing. Erica was horrified at his condition. He was scraped and dented and there was a jagged hole punched all the way through one wing. Megatron was right behind him and his optics bored into her. "You will repair him and then stay here until I summon you. Is that clear?"

"Yes," she said, trying unsuccessfully to look him in the eye without flinching too much. Megatron stared at her fiercely for a couple of seconds as though he was going to say something else and then abruptly turned and left.

It took almost the entire day to correct the mech's damage. Megatron had really beaten the hell out of him. There were a few torn hydraulic lines, but most of the fixes were to various panels and armor plates. Neither of them spoke other than was necessary to complete the job. Starscream had gotten his punishment. First the beating and then having a filthy human repair him. Erica's punishment was repairs to her least favorite 'bot, isolation and confinement mixed with a little deprivation. She remained right where she was for the next two days, leaving only when Ravage showed up to herd her out of the room and back to her quarters for restroom visits every five hours, but no food or anything else. It sucked but it was better than taking a beating. And technically, she had it coming. Furthermore, weaseling out of punishment wouldn't endear her to the others. Probably she should have just kept quiet because Starscream would undoubtedly be plotting some kind of revenge. Too late now, and zapping his ass had been very gratifying. The next time she was out she would swipe more tasers.

For the time being though, both she and the seeker had learned a lesson and went back to limiting their interaction outside the repair bay to such simple pleasantries as "Drop dead, Rover," which was answered with "Crash and burn, junk pile."

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On the third day, instead of going back to the repair bay, the constantly growling Ravage steered the human to the main control center. She had not been in there since the night Megatron told her just what she was dealing with.

Soundwave was waiting for her. She didn't actively dislike him, but you really had to pay attention when he said something because he could be a little hard to understand. She spent the rest of the day learning how to operate the control panel that raised and lowered the tower and how to switch between various devices to monitor the security of the base. It was harder than it sounded. Some of the buttons on the panel were so stiff she had to jump down hard on them before they would activate. Why would they want her to know this stuff? The answer came quickly. She was going to be left home alone.

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"And don't bother trying to call anyone you shouldn't," Megatron said a few days later. "The system has been locked to our frequency. If you get any ideas about tampering with it, keep in mind what happened the first time you attempted to use our equipment. By comparison to what will happen _this_ time, _that_ shock was but a gentle reminder."

_And I won't use the stove or answer the door for any strangers. _Erica thought, remembering the first time her parents let her stay home by herself for an afternoon.

"Just how long are you going to be gone?" She had no idea what they were up to. Megatron offered no information and she hadn't asked. He had only instructed her to determine whether or not she had enough provisions for at least two weeks.

"That has yet to be determined."

It was a weird feeling watching them all leave. And it was a creepy feeling, being all alone in a place that size. Every sound seemed three times as loud. She mostly kept to the control room. It soon became obvious that the time was going to pass in painfully slow fashion, despite the items she had stolen to keep herself entertained. By the end of the first week, she had read all the books she had taken and was getting tired of solitaire. The playing cards were starting to take on a worn look at the edges. She slept in the room in an enormous and very hard chair that held one end of the ramp that allowed her to run up to the console to do whatever she had to do. The hours ran into one another and if her watch had been without a calendar, she'd have had no idea of what day it was.

It would have been nice to have a tv, but Megatron had squashed that hope, declaring it "a detriment to her intellect." It was doubtful that he was concerned for her well-being. Most likely he was doing it to be a jerk. He probably wouldn't have been crazy about all the cassette tapes she had collected either, if he knew. But then he probably did know. She was pretty sure there wasn't a move she could make without his knowledge. It was kind of like her hometown where everyone knew your business before you even got home from conducting it. She hadn't really thought about home so much. Not that all hope had been abandoned, but it was easier and less painful not to dwell on it. And then it dawned on her that she had not seen another person in a couple of months now. That was weird to consider. She really didn't miss other humans so much. It wasn't like the Decepticons were devoid of personality, it was just the opposite, in fact. She was continually learning things about them. For instance, if Skywarp did not have any specific task to focus on, he was apt to get into trouble by playing practical jokes. Mean ones. He had been rumored to have shoved someone down some stairs (which seemed more like attempted murder till you realized that it took a lot more than that to really hurt these guys) and he was also the prime suspect in an incident where one of the new jets, Thrust maybe, had been the victim of paint remover in his metal polish.

Thundercracker was fairly indifferent to about everything. Dirge was about as cheery as a root canal. Blitzwing was kind of dopey. Longhaul complained a lot. There was no shortage of social dynamics to study. She could hardly believe it when the realization struck…she actually kind of missed them a little. Well some of them, anyway.

Starscream could stay gone as far as she was concerned. Megatron still gave her the creeps although she was getting better about maintaining eye contact. At least he hadn't done anything nasty since she first arrived and he hadn't really threatened her in a while, either. Erica had adopted a very GI sort of manner when dealing with him. Whenever he told her to do something, she would snap to attention, bow a little and say something like "it will be done," and then go do whatever it was. The first time she did it, he kind of looked at her as though he thought maybe he was being mocked. No, she had more sense than to do that. When he was around to hear it, that is. She couldn't imitate him well at all, but she had been working on it while she was alone. First you had to get a little spit in the back of the throat for gravelly-ness and then drop way down in pitch and make sure to really enunciate.

"Starscream you idiot! I will crush you just like I will crush the Autobots, ha, ha, haaaaa!" She barked. He was always planning to crush someone or something. That was fine so long as it wasn't her.

It was at that moment the communicator activated and her heart almost stopped, thinking Megatron had somehow heard her and was not amused by the impersonation.

"Skywarp to base! Emergency! Respond now!"

Shit, what was this? He sounded really upset which was totally unlike him. Erica sprinted up the ramp and stood on the transmit button.

"This is base, go Skywarp."

"Raise the tower! Hurry!"

"Roger that, raising tower," she said and ran over to jump hard on the button marked TOWER EXTEND until it sank down and locked in position, glowing a bright green.

The radar showed nothing and then as she was looking, a blip suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started approaching fast. It must have been Skywarp, but how did he just appear out of nowhere like that?

"And get a fire extinguisher and have it at the door!" He added, not bothering with protocol.

Erica didn't take the time to reply, she just went back down the ramp to the chair and then to another ramp to the floor and then tore off down the corridor for the repair bay. His very rattled sounding voice was starting to freak her out a little. There were several big fire extinguishers mounted on wheeled bases that had been part of the loot "borrowed" from the Navy. She grabbed the first one she came to and started shoving it out the door and back toward the elevator to the top of the tower.

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As the elevator stopped, she could see through the open door an aircraft approaching and it was really tearing ass. When Skywarp got close enough he transformed and slid along the outdoor platform leaning sideways like someone going for home plate.

He ran into the room and found Erica with the business end of the extinguisher hose pointed at him, ready to go

"Where is it? She asked. He was pretty beat up looking and had some scorch marks, but there were no flames visible.

"No, it's not me, it's Thundercracker."

"Where is he?" Until that moment, she had thought these guys were incapable of looking scared.

"He's still a few miles out. And he's really hurt bad."


	8. Chapter 8

Authors Note: Once again, thank you for all the nice comments. Your enthusiasm is much appreciated. I have more aircraft things to tell you if you're interested. For the sake of not boring those of you who aren't, all that stuff is at the end of the chapter this time. Enjoy. Transformers belong to Hasbro and a bunch of others, but not me.

xxx

Come Around By:  
Quetzal1

Chapter 8  
Even Seekers Get The Blues

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Skywarp and Erica stood peering out over the ocean.

"There he is," the mech said more to himself than the human. His optics were zoomed in as far as they would go and the information revealed was not good. Thundercracker's engine fire was worse and he was clearly struggling to control himself. Skywarp opened a panel beside the doorway and flipped a switch that extended the outside door/platform to twice its normal length.

Erica could not see as well as Skywarp, but she could see enough. The blue jet was leaving a thick, black trail of smoke, which revealed the irregular nature of his flight path. He had activated his landing lights and even the red and green navigation lights that they very seldom ever bothered with.

On Skywarp's communicator, a sharp burst of static became a recognizable voice, already in mid sentence.

"S_hhhrrrrrkkkkk_ … and I don't think I'm gonna make it 'Warp!"

"Yes you will. I can see you, it's only a little further."

"I can't shut off this engine and the fire's getting worse!"

"We'll worry about that when you get down. Can you control the other engine?"

"Yes, I…_shhhhhskkkrkkk_…but it seems ok."

"As soon as you're on the deck, shut it down."

Skywarp wasn't going to let him give up. Erica had never seen these guys show any kind of concern for one another before, and it seemed only to emphasize the dire nature of the situation.

"What do you want me to do?" She asked.

The gray and purple mech thought a moment. "Stand on this side," he said pointing to the left of the door. "I don't know how well this will work, but when he gets down and stopped you're going to have to see if you can shut down the engine. I don't know if something's stuck or his control of those functions is just disrupted somehow, or what, but the fire probably won't go out as long as it's running. Be very careful, though. If you get too close it'll pull you in."

"Okay," she said, uneasy at the idea and the mental images it brought. "I know where the throttle is, but what about the rest?"

"Just hit every button that's lit up."

They were both staring out the door as they spoke. The ailing Thundercracker was getting close.

"Alright, get ready. Move when I say go."

"Got it."

Skywarp stepped out onto the platform and walked a distance a little less than half of its extended length. He went into a crouch with his right leg and arm extended forward. The left leg was stretched behind him and the left arm was curled outward and down as though he were cradling something large and round. It occurred to Erica that the pose looked a lot like the little guy on the top of her brother's football trophies. What was he doing?

Thundercracker was getting very close and had descended.

"Adjust that yaw or you're gonna hit sideways and fall off."

"I'm trying…_shhhhhkkkkrrrrkkkkkkk_…or not."

"You can do this. This is nothing."

"I don't think I have any brakes! Even my air brake is out! 'Warp, get out of the way, save yourself!"

"Don't worry about me, I've got a plan."

The blue jet touched down, bounced once and then settled. The good engine throttled back then stopped just as he reached his waiting wingmate. The extended right hand grabbed the wing and his other arm curled around the nosecone of the injured seeker. Skywarp was shoved back from the force but tried to dig in as best he could. Sparks flew as his feet scraped along the surface of the deck. It was starting to work. By the time they reached the door, the pair were at a stop. They came onto the elevator platform and the shriek of the burning engine was almost deafening inside the tower.

"GO! NOW!" Skywarp yelled at Erica who was staying out of the way and holding her hands over her ears.

Upon getting the word, she ran toward Thundercracker and began climbing her way up to the cockpit, which under normal circumstances wasn't easy. But as it was, the seekers were constantly shifting position as Skywarp tried to keep it all steady and Thundercracker did what he could to help which, given his condition, wasn't much. Erica had started her climb and fell once, landing hard and scrambling backward on the floor like a crab as the nose section swung in her direction and the screaming engine loomed dangerously close. There was a distinct pull. She finally got into the pilot seat and quickly throttled down the engine, making it much easier for Skywarp to keep the three of them from falling off the platform and then she began poking all the illuminated buttons as instructed until it stopped. The fire extinguisher took care of the rest.

The silence was enormous but short lived as there followed a loud bang from the underside of the damaged aircraft.

"AAARRRGGGHHH! PRIMUS, THAT SLAGGIN' HURTS!"

"What was it?" Erica asked. She was already halfway to the ground when it happened.

"I don't know, but it's not stopping."

Skywarp had activated the elevator and the group was descending. He got down on one knee and bent over to peer at the damage. Erica had already gotten beneath the wing on the starboard side and was doing the same. The mech did not like the look that the human gave him.

"How bad is it?" Thundercracker asked, continuing to sound extremely pained.

Erica looked at Skywarp again and shrugged with that same helpless expression.

"It's not so bad. We can fix you up," the mech said.

"Yeah, you'll be okay," Erica said, trying to sound like she wasn't lying. The underside of the Decepticon was shredded and all sorts of fluids and energon were leaking out. She wasn't sure of his chances even if they'd had someone there who really knew what they were doing. And all they had was herself and Skywarp.

XxXxX

The blue mech was unable to transform so Skywarp had pushed him all the way to the repair dock. Thundercracker was making all kinds of agonized noises, which gradually degenerated to something that sounded like incoherent growls before stasis lock was induced.

"C'mon and help me get these panels off," Erica said.

"Are you sure about what you're doing?"

"He can't hear us right now, can he?"

"No."

"Then the answer is no, not entirely. I mean I've learned a lot of stuff, but this is kind of over my head. You know what to do don't you?"

"I can weld and I can replace minor parts but that's about it."

Great. Things were not looking very promising.

"Okay then, first we need to stop the energon leaks. All those panels have to come off so we can see what we're doing. While I start that, you weld some kind of stand to slide underneath him so I don't get squashed if any of that landing gear collapses."

The stands were quickly fashioned and then between the two of them, it did not take long to remove the various outer panels and armor. If the damaged mech had been able to transform it would have made the task easier but as it was, every part was wedged in tight to allow the alt mode. Erica didn't know where to start. There was so much destruction and everything was hot and seemed to be coated with a mixture of energon and hydraulic fluid and some strange blue stuff she hadn't seen before. They did not have any replacement lines already made so the hoses and metal lines carrying the energon and other fluids were wrapped with duct tape to slow the leaking until new ones were fabricated. Skywarp got a few energon cubes and connected them to an external regulator and these efforts bought them more time.

The damage (or would it be injury?) to the mech was unbelievable. Erica surveyed it after the worst of the leaks were temporarily dealt with and paths for the fuel had been rerouted. Shit, this was not a good first time at bat. She found herself wishing Hook was there, or at this point, even Starscream. And just where was he? These guys were almost always together on missions. Skywarp busied himself removing the biggest pieces of shrapnel while Erica set about making new lines for energon. Rerouting could only be done for so long, kind of like cutting off blood flow.

XxXxX

The pair worked for hours. Erica was filthy and Skywarp looked kind of odd. The mech was missing several armor plates and sections of sheet metal. Some things on the computer were kind of hard to figure out, so Erica convinced Skywarp to transform and let her remove panels to see how his internal systems were set up so then she had something to compare Thundercracker to. She learned several new things.

"Bleah! What the hell is this stuff? It's all over the place, " she said, holding up a gloved hand that was coated in a light blue slimy substance that vaguely reminded her of the last really bad head cold she'd had.

"That's from the internal diagnostics and repairs," Skywarp replied.

"But what is it, exactly?"

"I don't know, but any time there's damage, that will leak out and repair the problem if it's not too bad. See?" the mech said, extending a hand that had a gouge in the metal which was lightly coated in the gel. "That will fix it, but if I'd blown a big hole in it or torn part of it off, that would be too much."

At last they had done about all they could. The internal diagnostics and repairs began to kick in, as one by one they reactivated various systems. The biggest problem was going to be the engine. It was so damaged that internal repairs would not be able to fix it completely. After all the monitoring systems had been connected and the alarms on it set to alert them of any problem, Erica left to clean up. Skywarp made a call to Cybertron and got the news he had feared. Shockwave informed him that there were no replacement engines available.

XxXxX

The main lights had been shut off and the injured 'bot was surrounded by several dimmer lights that sat on the floor and illuminated his underside. Erica went over and checked the readings on the monitors. Everything appeared to be holding within the acceptable ranges. That was good because she was worn out. A look around with a flashlight to see if any new leaks or problems had developed showed that nothing was any different except that everything was now covered with the blue slimy stuff. She didn't know why it would be there on something like a wire splice but it was. Oh well, this was normal, evidently. Poor 'Cracker. She wondered if he could feel anything yet. They had activated the central processors so at some point he would come out of stasis. Without really thinking about it, she reached up and rubbed the side of the aircraft and patted it like you would a friendly animal.

She shut off the small flashlight and slid it back on to her belt and paused to pick up the sleeping bag and bologna sandwich she had brought along before continuing over to the far side of the room.

Skywarp had watched as the human approached his injured wingmate. If she was up to something untoward, he would turn her into a piece of charcoal and worry about Megatron later. He was pretty sure that this was not the case, however. It was curious. She seemed to actually care. Skywarp had noticed little things like how she had tried to be gentle routing some lines after asking him how much they could feel things of that nature. Hook or Starscream would just do it without much regard for anyone's comfort. And there was the matter of being willing to help earlier with no hesitation, despite the risk involved. Maybe these fleshbags were not all alike.

He could have gone undetected a while longer if he hadn't shifted his weight. Erica was still a little dazzled by the lights and didn't notice Skywarp in the gloom until she heard the quiet metallic scraping sound.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Erica asked for about the fifth time.

"Yes. Do you have memory function problems?"

"No, just making sure you haven't changed your mind," she said, wrapping the unzipped sleeping bag around herself and sitting down beside the mech. "What happened out there?"

XxXxX

For the seekers, the mission was fun. All they had to do was harass and aggravate the Autobots and keep them busy while the main force was off carrying out the rest of the plan. They kept at it for days as a group and individually before getting the word to break it off and join the others. It was at the very end of the last attack that Thundercracker took a concentrated barrage of direct hits. This in itself was not enough to bring him down, though it did cause a lot of damage. Incredibly, what nearly finished him was a bunch of humans.

The three of them were flying low to minimize detection by anyone and when they went through a narrow mountain pass, they were suddenly caught in a hail of incendiary projectiles from below and both sides. Again, on their own, this wasn't enough to really cause too much harm, but a whole lot of that into a bunch of big open wounds was another matter. To make the situation worse, in order to escape the terrain, one had to roll to the side for a few seconds while ascending which only gave the meat sacks a better shot.

Starscream and Skywarp had both turned and handed out a little payback. A cluster of bouncer bombs dropped into a confined area like that did all kinds of nasty things and a blast of null ray was enough to explode the little cannons. During the counter attack, Starscream had taken some hits and said his vertical stabilizers were damaged. He went out of sight behind some hills but there was no explosion. Skywarp was able to contact him briefly.

"I will correct the problem and join you as soon as I can," he had said.

The gray and purple jet then disengaged the humans and took off in search of his injured comrade.

XxXxX

"Humans did that?" Erica asked. "You're sure?"

"Yes. They were dressed kind of like you but in green."

That sounded like the Army. Holy shit, Megatron had been telling the truth! And this was the part she had the most trouble believing. She suddenly felt a little sick and totally lost interest in the rest of the sandwich.

"What about Starscream? You don't think they got him do you?"

"I doubt it. They weren't in any shape to be getting anyone when we got through with them. It's probably just taking him longer than he thought to fix the problem."

"You don't seem too worried."

There was a time when he might have been, but it had passed long ago as the missing 'bot's ambition had grown to insane proportions. Before contacting Shockwave he had called their leader to inform him of what had happened and asked about looking for the missing Air Commander. He had been told not to bother. "If he repairs himself he will return to base. If the Autobots captured him, we will soon be informed," the despot advised.

"We have bigger problems to worry about."

"What?" Erica asked.

"That engine is a lost cause."

"Totally."

"I contacted Cybertron. They don't have any replacements."

"Can he live without it?"

"If you call that living. He wouldn't be able to fly in either form. It's too much weight."

"But he could survive?"

"He wouldn't want to." Skywarp had difficulty imagining a worse fate than being permanently earthbound. And for Thundercracker, who prided himself on the act of flight it would be that much worse.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Trust me. How would you like it if you had a leg chopped off?"

"That would suck, but I don't think I'd want to die over it."

"I guess not, but if you could fly you'd understand better."

"Maybe." Erica had given some thought to what it must be like to be able to fly anytime you wanted. That had to be a glorious thing, even if you'd been doing it for millions of years. And then to have it suddenly taken away forever…. "You guys are pretty close, huh?"

"We've been wingmates a very long time."

"Is that the same thing as teammate?"

"Yes, but it's more than that. I think the closest earth definition would be 'brothers in arms,' but even that isn't quite right." It was hard to explain in terms to make an outsider understand, but the two mechs had been together since joining the Decepticons and had faced battle time and time again. They had seen a lot and each could trust the other when things went bad. And it didn't get much worse than this.

"What do we do about it?"

"I don't know." The mech wasn't lying but he did have the beginnings of an idea. First though, he'd need a recharge before he considered it more.

They sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Skywarp worried about what would become of his friend and Erica worried about what Megatron had told her concerning the coming war.

"If it's alright with you, I'm going to get a little sleep. The alarms will go off if something happens and your communicator is still tied in incase anyone calls, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Goodnight," the human said, pulling the sleeping bag closer and getting into a horizontal position. Usually her perfunctory pleasantries were ignored or regarded with confusion. She was surprised when Skywarp replied.

"Goodnight." And then he leaned back against the wall and his optics dimmed as he entered recharge.

XxX

Author's note continued: Still here? Okay. First, those red and green lights you see on wingtips? Those are navigation lights and are for the benefit of other aircraft. If you were in the cockpit, the green light is on the right side and the red is on the left. In darkness, this allows the pilots in other aircraft to determine if whatever it is, is coming toward or moving away from them. Landing lights are what the name implies. Think of them as headlights for when the plane is on the ground. Vertical stabilizers are the parts on the tail that stick up. Horizontal stabilizers are the tail parts that are on the sides like the wings. The F-15 really does have an airbrake. It's a panel behind the cockpit that pops up. You never see it on the show, but if they'd tried to be that accurate, they'd only be halfway through season two at this point. And it is true that a person can get sucked into a jet engine if they get too close when it's running. You'd have to be pretty close though.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note: And here we have Chapter 9, the longest one so far. This thing is kind of taking on a life of its own. The rest of the author's notes are at the end so I don't give anything away. Enjoy. And thanks for the comments. Transformers belong to Hasbro and others.

xxx

Come Around  
By: Quetzal

Chapter 9  
Bits and Pieces

xxx

The landscape revealed signs of a battle, mostly in the form of craters and debris. The more he looked, the angrier Megatron became. Surely these pathetic humans did not hope to stand against his forces? To do so would only bring about their deaths that much sooner. Fine. If that was the way they wanted it, he would be more than happy to oblige. He had been lying to Erica but here was proof of exactly what he had told her. This was the fourth stop they had made. The other sites they had visited had clues that humans had been there but only this spot showed evidence of a fight. So, they had picked likely spots surrounding the area where the Autobots had been attacked and hoped to get lucky, waiting to see if any Decepticons had been softened up so that they might destroy them. And what galled him the most was that it had nearly worked. Well, no more. They had their chance. Next time they would get a nasty, nasty surprise. For the present, however there were other matters to attend to. Not the least of which was finding his missing Air Commander. Leave it to that idiot to come up missing just when there was the most work to be done.

Fortunately for the missing idiot in question, the location of the nearby cave he was in, coupled with the fact that it was laced with various ores and minerals, shielded him from scans to locate him as he was comfortably in recharge. The humans really had shot Starscream and while it hadn't hurt him, it had allowed a believable excuse to disappear. The others were too far away when the ambush occurred, which left himself and Skywarp to attend to Thundercracker. Well technically there was also "Fido," but the damage inflicted on the seeker was far beyond any training she had received. What he was intending to prove was that the human was useless in her intended capacity and that Megatron was a fool for even considering the idea. He intended to show up in time to save the day, though. It was risky, but Thundercracker was pretty tough. Sacrifices sometimes had to be made for the greater glory of the cause…and his own advancement. This was what he told himself, but if he had known the extent of his wingmate's damage he would have likely reconsidered.

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It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. During the time Erica had slept, the blue substance had done its work and then dried up, leaving behind something kind of like the skin a snake sheds only more fragile and opaque. She reached up and touched a bundle of wires and a big chunk of the dried fluid came off and floated to the floor. Beneath it was almost new looking wires without any of the splices she had installed as a temporary measure.

The scorch marks were almost undetectable and even some of the melted framework was better. There were still some sections that would require replacement but not nearly so many as before. Despite Skywarp's dire predictions, the engine didn't look so bad. Maybe he was wrong. Erica was getting pretty excited at the prospect. On the floor beneath the exhaust was a big pile of the dried blue stuff mixed with what looked like foam from the fire extinguisher. Amazing. The internal diagnostics had cleaned it up and removed it. Oh this was really looking good. She pulled the flashlight free from her belt and began to check out things more closely. She was glad that her meticulous nature had made her look first before saying anything to Skywarp, who was still recharging.

"Fuck," she muttered to herself with tired disappointment. The insides of the engine were scrupulously clean but what little was visible from that end was clearly ruined. Clean but wrecked. The other one appeared to be fine, but that wasn't going to be any help. She climbed back down from the stand and had a look at the monitoring equipment before going back over to where Skywarp sat, thinking he was still off line. He had not moved and his optics were not lit but he was very much awake. He had watched her and was starting to feel hopeful as she ran around to have a look inside the engine but then he heard her say what, according to Frenzy, was "the worst human swear," and then visibly sag, he knew it was just as he'd thought in the beginning.

"It's like I said isn't it?" He asked in a quiet voice that still startled the human.

"Oh, you're awake. Yeah. It's really clean and the outside looks ok but the inside is all melted and bent up."

"The outside looks good?"

"Yeah, why?"

"C'mon, lets get out of here first," the mech said quietly, looking at the inert Thundercracker. He did not want his wingmate to find out what had happened to him accidentally.

Out in the hall Skywarp crouched and extended a hand. "If I have to wait on you to keep up, it'll take all day to get back to the control room."

Erica didn't really mind the ride. Running to keep up all the time was very tiring.

"So what's on your mind?" she asked.

"See what you think of this; how about converting a regular jet engine over to one like ours?"

"I don't know. What's the difference besides the fact that yours run on energon instead of jet fuel?"

"We have physical control of it, so there's some extra parts on the outside."

"You think they could be made to fit?"

"Yes. When we took on these Earth disguises, it modified things a lot. If we were still in our original forms, then I don't think it'd work."

"I'm no jet mechanic, but it sounds like a good idea. It's better than doing nothing, though I gotta admit, I can't imagine it being as easy as that."

"Me either. I wish I knew more about this kind of thing."

"When do you think he's going to snap out of it?"

"I don't know. Anytime, I guess." He had actually noticed some subtle movement and was pretty sure his wounded wingmate was coming out of stasis.

"Will he be ok or will he freak out or will we not mention it and hope he's too out of whack to notice?"

"Usually he's pretty calm, but with this...I expect the worst."

They had reached the control room and the mech deposited his passenger on the panel beside the ramp to the chair. It had been a long night and neither of them was operating with a full charge.

"I'm going to go back and wait. I want to be there when he comes on line again."

"Yeah. That would be best. Are you going to tell him this idea of yours if it comes up?"

"I don't think so. Megatron is going to have to approve it first and I don't want to get his hopes up for nothing."

"I can't imagine not approving it."

Skywarp shrugged and then left. Erica had said nothing about coming back to this room, but here she was. Very smooth the way he had gotten rid of her to gain some privacy, although all he would have had to do was ask. Oh well, he wasn't the most socially skilled. Erica didn't mind and she could understand it. She went back down the ramp to the chair and sat down. Where would be the best place to get a replacement engine? After what had just happened, the military was probably on alert. That would make it awful hard to steal from _any_ base, not just the ones with F-15s. She doubted that anyone would think that they would get that specific. For all they knew, Thundercracker went down in the ocean. And even if he didn't, they had no way of knowing what his problems were. She felt a sudden wave of disgust mixed with anger. Those Autobots nearly killed him, the bastards. And her own people were being led right on down the garden path. Why couldn't they see what was happening?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thundercracker felt thoroughly scrapped. He had not yet activated his optics but every other system that came up told him that all wasn't well. Coming out of stasis didn't make for the sharpest processor, either. He was still in his alt mode and various sensors informed him that he had several panels missing and many damaged parts, as well as low energon reserves. It even felt like he had an engine missing. That was weird.

As his optics flickered on, he was surprised to see Skywarp sitting on the floor right in front of him.

"Welcome back. How do you feel?"

" 'Warp, until right now I didn't know it was possible to feel this bad."

"Do you remember what happened?"

"Yeah. You crazy slagger, you could've been killed."

"Like you wouldn't do the same thing."

"No. I would have let you go in. I would have given you a push, even."

"Liar," Skywarp said with a grin.

"So I guess I'm gonna live?"

"Looks like it."

He gently shifted his weight around a little and clanged against the framework beneath. "What's all that under there?"

"Oh, I did that incase your landing gear collapsed. Erica was worried about being flattened. I guess you have to think of things like that when you're a squishy organic."

"This wasn't Hook or Starscream's doing?"

"They weren't here. It was just us two."

"I'm luckier than I thought, because I know you don't know anything and 'ol Screamer says that Erica's a lost cause."

"Hey, I know more than you think. And I hate to tell you, but that human is mostly responsible for saving your broken tail."

"No way."

"'Fraid so."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Did you two geniuses forget to reconnect some neurosensors because I can't feel my port engine."

Skywarp wasn't sure how to reply and could not hide his troubled expression.

"What's wrong?" Thundercracker asked.

"Yeah, about that…well see, the fire did a lot of damage…" The gray and purple mech was unsure how to continue.

"And?"

"We couldn't do anything for it," he finished with a pained look.

"That's not funny." Skywarp was known for his inappropriate sense of humor but this was in the worst taste _ever_.

"We…we tried but it was even too much for the internal repair system…" It was very obvious he wasn't joking.

"No!"

"I'm sorry."

"No! You know I can't fly without both engines! Can't you get one from Cybertron?"

"Shockwave said there's not any."

"You've gotta be wrong!"

"I wish I was," Skywarp said, hanging his head.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Erica was afraid she was going to puke before it was all over. Her nerves were a wreck. The other Decepticons had returned and now she was getting a very stern third degree from Megatron with Hook at his side deciding if her responses were correct. What if she'd done something wrong? Would they kill her on the spot? It was typical, really. They teach her this stuff and then waltz off and leave her alone and then get all pissy because she did what had to be done and trying her hardest hadn't been enough.

"And then what?" Megatron asked, glaring at her and obviously not in a pleasant mood.

"We reactivated his systems one at a time and waited for him to come out of stasis."

"In what order?" Hook asked in accusatory fashion.

"In the order _you_ taught me. I have it written down as a guide and it's also on the computer manual at screen S-475. I wouldn't dare do that from memory on something with as many subsystems as a seeker." She was kind of pissed as well as scared. It was just like old times.

"Is this correct?" Megatron asked Hook.

"Believe it or not, proper procedure was followed. She took the appropriate measures, although I'd like to see this 'duct tape' for myself."

"Excellent. Now enlighten us as to this idea Skywarp has." His curiosity was piqued but his hopes were not high. Seldom did that particular soldier ever offer any kind of idea.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"How could you do this to me!?" Thundercracker said, his voice a combination of wild anger and misery.

"I wasn't just going to let you deactivate!"

The door slid open admitting Megatron, Erica, Hook, and Soundwave.

"What's going on here?" Megatron asked in no nonsense fashion as he bent down and deposited Erica on the floor.

It took effort for Soundwave not to recoil a little from the waves of blind rage that radiated from the seeker. Right now this was not a fun place to be a telepath.

"YOU!" Thundercracker hissed as soon as he noticed the human. "You're the one responsible for this!"

What could she say to that? For the first time ever she wished that she was still in the relative safety of her perch in Megatron's hand.

"I couldn't sit there and do nothing, you would have died."

"It's obvious he's not thinking clearly as a side effect of the stasis," Hook said quietly, "And in his current state, he's likely to re-injure something."

"Status: extremely irrational," Soundwave said, echoing the sentiment.

"Induce stasis lock, Erica," Megatron said. She looked up at him, eyes wide. "If he were able to get you he would have tried already, now get moving."

To hell with this action. She knew he couldn't transform because they had removed the transformation cog to prevent him from hurting himself and his weapons were also off line, but all that was of little comfort. The seeker was absolutely quivering with fury and was a fearsome thing to get near.

"When I can move again I am going to tear you limb from limb, you putrid little fleshbag!"

Shit! She had expected depression or whatever they had as an equivalent, but no one had said anything about homicidal rage. She ducked under a wing and when she came out the flaps swung down with the speed of a guillotine. They barely missed her head and she dove to get away.

"C'mon, you don't mean that," said Skywarp, trying to calm things.

"Oh yes I do! And after her, you're next!"

As Erica punched a few buttons on the support equipment, Thundercracker began his tirade anew.

"Butcher! I will destroy you! You will beg for death and …." And then sudden silence as stasis took hold.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Three 'bots and the human stood in a kind of circle, arguing.

"I don't know," said Hook. "No one has ever tried anything like this before. It could be a waste of time and effort and materials."

"Yeah, but it might not. You just said you didn't know." Skywarp replied.

"I am fairly confident that it won't work."

"Based on what?" Erica asked. Hook looked down at her disdainfully and remained silent.

"Answer the question," Megatron said. There was so much petty bickering and infighting that it was sometimes difficult to tell when disagreement stemmed from that instead of sound reasoning.

"This replacement part is very likely to be rejected when internal diagnostics senses its presence. It could look upon it as damage."

Megatron turned to Skywarp, expecting a rebuttal. The seeker was having a hard time coming up with something. Medical knowledge wasn't his strong suit anyway.

"Excuse me, Leader, but may I interject here?"

"Proceed," he said. Ordinarily when his human used the grave formality with him, it was for good reason. He still found it amusing though.

"Could I have boost, please?" she said to Skywarp. "My neck is going to cramp from looking up like this." The seeker started to pick her up but then paused to look at Megatron, who nodded assent. You did not just mess with his stuff without permission.

When she was at a more comfortable level she continued, "I think there's a good chance it would work because the diagnostics have already incorporated some donor parts." She went on to tell them about the wire splices and fuel lines she had made that were now all but indistinguishable from the original parts.

"An entire engine is a lot more for it to correct," Hook argued. He did so hate to be wrong once he took a position on something.

"Right, but we could give it a head start by taking the good fuel and control components from the dead engine and fitting them to the replacement before we put it in. And yeah, he might have to stay off line a lot longer for it to work, but even so why not try it? It won't kill him will it?"

"No."

"Where do the two of you intend to get this part from? It is quite obvious that the humans will be on the alert, and there may be additional interference from the Autobots." Megatron asked, finally doing something besides being referee, judge and jury.

Skywarp was remaining silent. Erica turned to look at him, thinking he must have someplace in mind. He shrugged imperceptibly and looked right back at her. _Oh thanks a bunch. Come up with this idea and then leave the details to me,_ she thought

Megatron crossed his arms impatiently. "Well?"

"Okay, I was thinking about that. None of them know for sure what happened to Thundercracker. He could have crashed in the ocean or deactivated from the damage."

"Yeah, he wasn't even on fire until we got away from there," Skywarp added.

"I agree that they'll be on alert, but I don't think it'll be at that high a level. Plus, I bet they would expect you to go the obvious route and just show up and take whatever you need by force. That _is_ usually the way it's done, right?"

"Usually, but…?" The white and silver mech said, anticipating a departure from the norm.

"But what if you snuck in and grabbed a jet or two and left before they ever knew anyone had been there? A small group could be in and out in no time."

"In and out of where?" Hook asked.

"This Air Force base in Arizona. I can't remember the name. Dulles…Dallas…no… Davis! Davis-Monthan, that's it! Anyway, there's an aircraft graveyard there."

"Graveyard?" Skywarp said, doubtfully.

"It's just a name. They keep a ton of planes there. Some are being stored until they get used again, some are sold to other countries and some of them are scrapped for parts. I saw a thing on tv about it once. There's rows and rows of planes and helicopters all just sitting out there in the open."

"Interesting. The two of you will need to assemble a team and decide on a strategy. I want a progress report in two hours," Megatron said.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Starscream was surprised to see that the other Decepticons had returned before him. He happened upon Dirge and Ramjet and could immediately tell that something was going on. They were even more serious than usual.

"Starscream, where have you been?" Ramjet asked.

"We had a little run in with the humans and they got me worse than I thought. I had to wait for the internal repairs to finish before I could get back," Starscream lied. "What's going on?"

"It would seem that Thundercracker is going to be permanently grounded," said Ramjet.

"What?!"

"Yes, there was a fire that totally scrapped one engine," Dirge affirmed, in an appropriately somber tone.

"Did he survive?" The red and blue mech asked, suddenly regretting his entire plan. Fire?! What fire? He was just trailing a little smoke when they cleared the mountain pass.

"He's in stasis right now. He didn't take it well at all when he found out."

"Where is Skywarp?" He asked, walking off to look for him before he even got an answer. No, no, no! This was not the plan at all. He was supposed to give the human enough rope to hang herself with and she in turn would take Megatron along for the ride. But no. Yet another failure.

Even if Thundercracker had deactivated, Starscream could have been alright with it in time. But to be…mutilated that way and still functioning? It was too much. And fire damage was not something that could be blamed on anyone directly except the ones that shot him.

He went to the repair bay first thinking Skywarp must be there. Except for Thundercracker, it was empty. He could not take his optics off the injured mech. Really from this distance, the damage didn't look so bad. Not wanting to, but feeling overwhelmed by guilt (which for him was the rarest of all feelings,) he drew nearer. At one point the three of them had been very close. As Starscream's ambition had increased they had grown apart. Their blind allegiance to Megatron confounded and infuriated him and he came to consider them as pawns in his bid for control. But no, it wasn't always like that. His memory processors could be very unpleasant to him sometimes like right then when he recalled the early days. They had been a deadly trident to their Autobot enemies. You did not fire on any one of them without getting triple the vengeance back.

Maybe he could have done something if he'd come back with them. Maybe not. But he could do something now.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"We won't know for sure till Astrotrain and Laserbeak get back with the pictures, but there's got to be someplace to land that would be outside their radar," Erica said.

Astrotrain had been dispatched to take high altitude photographs of the entire base. They had considered just hacking into a satellite but feared that it would be detected thereby alerting the authorities. Laserbeak had been sent to reconnoiter the area as his size and capability for low level flying would allow him to go undiscovered. It was his first solo mission since his accident. Soundwave had been unable to let him go without an additional warning to use extreme caution. Such a mother hen.

"Agreed. In the meantime we need to come up with 4 more to be with the strike force," Skywarp replied.

"I wish you'd stop calling it that. This isn't a grocery run, no one's supposed to know we were ever there." We. That sounded weird. Why would Megatron insist she go along on this little excursion? What good would she be if anything went wrong?

"Whatever. Which four?"

"Which three. You already have one," said a raspy voice behind them. The pair were surprised to see Starscream standing there in the doorway with his arms folded in front of him and an obstinate expression on his face. "And if you think I'm not going to join you, think again."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Author's Note Continued: Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is real and is home to an aircraft graveyard. I'd love to go have a look around. It's enormous and just goes on and on. Wanna see? Go to oneof those satellite photo sites and enter -110.85787 Longitude and 32.16921 Latitude (be sure you get that minus in front of the longitude numbers.) When the photo comes up, click on the picture to move in a southerly direction. Keep doing that and zoom in enough to see the planes. Neat huh? There's also tour video at YouTube. You can also take the easy route and look up Davis Monthan at Google image.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: Double digit chapters now. I think this may be the longest thing I've ever written. Thanks for reading and for taking the good time and trouble to comment. It's nice to know that people are enjoying this. Transformers belong to Hasbro, Takara and others, not me though.

xxx

Come Around  
By Quetzal

Chapter 10  
Grave Robbing

xxx

The team would consist of Starscream, Dirge, Longhaul, Scrapper, Skywarp who was in charge, and Erica. If it turned into a fight it was better to have forces on the ground as well as the air. Not to mention the fact that the Constructicons were very strong and less argumentative. The photos provided by Astrotrain showed a fairly uninhabited area to the south of the base and the town. They would land there and then approach the base on foot. Laserbeak's reconnaissance showed that away from the buildings, it was almost total darkness. The main force would wait at a distance while one 'bot deposited the human over the fence. She would locate the targets and then summon the others who would abscond with them. They would strike the following night. It sounded simple.

Erica wasn't worried about the plan. These guys had been doing this kind of thing for a long time and it seemed to be a sound strategy. What bothered her was participating and what it meant. Thus far, she hadn't done so much that was really all that bad. Sure there was all the stuff that was stolen, but that was a legitimate matter of survival. She did have to eat, after all. However, stealing from the United States military was something else all together. Hell, it had been her idea. It surely counted as treason. Did they still hang people for that or was it a firing squad? Probably it was nothing more dramatic than the electric chair for a civilian. But then what was she worried about? She'd never get as far as the county jail, let alone the chair, not as long as she had this collar on.

While she was beginning to develop a hatred for the Autobots, people were another matter. They were just misguided, and she didn't want to hurt anybody. At least she had convinced the Decepticons to try stealth and in a place that might make it possible to avoid any fighting. She sighed and resumed her aimless wandering about the base. She was supposed to be sleeping but seriously, how could she with this hanging over her head? Eventually she came to a viewport and stopped to look out at the darkness. Even during the day it was hard to see much of anything.

After a few moments, she thought about resuming her wandering. The repair bay was nearby but she didn't think going there would be so wise. Would Thundercracker really kill her at the first opportunity? Skywarp didn't seem to think so, but how could he know for sure? Damn, but she'd never seen anyone so angry. It made her blood run cold. And what would happen if this little scheme worked? Would he still be mad? Trying to do the right thing certainly made a person's life harder.

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Megatron was feeling the need for a recharge. Things were in a controlled state of disarray and it aggravated him. His current plan for a way to collect energy had to be put on hold until this business with Thundercracker was resolved one way or another. Seekers were very useful soldiers but they could be such high-strung creatures. In all his time as Decepticon leader this was not the first time he had seen this situation. The last time had been long ago in the early days of the war. Sundevil had been a good soldier but then wounds sustained in battle had rendered him unable to fly. He didn't give up immediately and tried to carry on, but eventually became so unstable and prone to violent unprovoked outbursts that Megatron finally had to terminate him. Should Thundercracker show the same tendency, he would also be eliminated. First though, he would allow this experiment.

Honestly he was surprised that Skywarp had come up with it. Erica's proposal to steal from this "graveyard" was interesting as well and then the whole business of the two of them managing to save Thundercracker. They were becoming quite a team and he wasn't sure if he liked that or not. Either way, she was doing a pretty good job of gaining acceptance from most of his troops.

And then Starscream returned from wherever he had been, not looking any the worse for wear considering what he claimed to have endured. Unbelievably, he had not uttered a single word of protest when informed that Skywarp was in charge of the mission. Strange goings on, indeed. He rose from his chair and made his way to the corridor, about to head to his recharge chamber when he spotted his human standing in front of the viewport staring out into the darkness.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" He asked.

"Good evening, mighty one," she replied, so lost in thought she hadn't noticed his approach.

She had very good manners he would admit that much. "You needn't be so formal, it's just you and I."

Silence. The mech had noticed that she did not seem to be quite as attentive as she usually was, although when she became aware of his presence all sorts of biological functions ratcheted up to much higher levels. Despite how well she got along with some of the others, she had not lost her fear of him. Very wise of her.

"What is troubling you?" He asked, trying to sound concerned and sounding so fake to his own audio sensors it was almost funny.

She looked up, unsure if she should tell him or not. Someone who'd been around for a few million years might have some good insight. Well, unless he got pissed and decided to squash her like a bug. It was hard to tell what would set him off sometimes.

"It's this mission." Geez, that sounded weird. She wasn't the sort of person who went on 'missions.'

"What about it?"

"I don't know. I guess it's just that what we're going to do…I don't feel exactly right about it."

Humans and these ridiculous moral dilemmas! "What specifically don't you feel _right_ about?" He asked, trying not to sound as exasperated as these things made him feel.

She thought about it a moment. "I don't know. It's just that so far I haven't really done anything against any other humans…but this isn't just humans, it's my _country_ and I just…." She trailed off with a confused shrug. "I'm not making any sense am I?"

"Some, but not much."

"It's hard to put into words." Her father had been with the Marines in Vietnam and both of her grandfathers had fought in World War II. Patriotism was a serious thing in the Dawes household.

"Obviously."

"I don't even know why you need me for this."

"So it's acceptable for you to make suggestions but not to participate?"

"No. That's not what I meant."

"You surely haven't forgotten what I've told you. I know you did not want to believe but how much evidence do you require?"

"I didn't forget and I believe you."

"You're serving the greater good."

"Yeah, I guess."

"The actions you take may save many lives later on. At the least you may save Thundercracker."

"Would he really not want to live?"

"All Decepticons can become airborne but only a seeker truly flies. Can you understand the difference?"

She thought for a few moments before replying. "Kind of."

"It is who they are, what they live for. And to lose that would eventually drive him mad. I have seen this before, you know. What you witnessed earlier was nothing compared to what he would eventually degenerate to. I'm sure you don't want that."

"No, I don't." This was two independent sources she had heard the same information from now, though Megatron tended to express it a little better.

"Well then, I don't see why this is so difficult for you."

"Put that way, it isn't, but…I don't know. Everything's not as black and white for me as it is for you."

"Erica, do I have any reason to be concerned that you will make some sort of trouble while you're gone?" he asked, tilting his head to one side and looking at her very hard.

"Absolutely not," she said, sounding insulted as she glared right back at the towering mechanoid. And he didn't. She would not focus on the treasonous aspects but instead the fact that it was necessary to save Thundercracker. And maybe, just maybe they had it coming for trying to kill him in the first place.

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The skies were clear with no moon. A good night for trespassing and stealing. Each Decepticon took off at intervals of 10 to 15 minutes apart and on slightly different headings. On the off chance someone detected them it was better not to be seen en masse, as it would arouse suspicions. They would all converge on the coordinates decided upon earlier. As mission leader, Skywarp left first. He would scout the rendezvous point and make sure everything was as it should be well before the others arrived. He was perhaps the most surprised of all of them to still be in charge of this assignment even after the return of their Air Commander.

Erica watched as he transformed and rocketed away, suddenly disappearing in a sort of cloud of wavy lines that looked like the heat waves from a hot surface.

"Wow, what was that?"

"What?"

"Skywarp just disappeared."

"He teleported," Starscream replied with disinterest. He had seen it more times than anyone could count and the novelty was long gone.

"Teleported? Really?"

"Yes, hence his name Sky_warp_?" He replied, emphasizing the second half.

"Oh. I thought that had something to do with his sense of humor." Erica was being serious but she thought her nemesis actually cracked a smile, albeit very briefly.

The pair had been thrown together out of necessity. Skywarp didn't know what would happen to a passenger when he teleported since until recently, he'd never had one, and now wasn't the time for experimenting. The Constructicons flew in robot mode and Dirge was just too creepy. The human probably wouldn't be able to make a move or say much of anything without getting the standard death-comes-to-he-who-whatever nonsense. And Primus help her if she asked Dirge if she could 'drive' like she did him sometimes (the request always got an annoyed refusal from Skywarp.) The gravity of the undertaking kept either of them from so much as making a noise or look of disgust when told they were going to be paired together.

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It was a long way to Arizona. Erica passed the time by going over the plan in her mind and trying unsuccessfully to doze when it was obvious that Starscream wasn't going to engage in any sort of conversation. Hey, at least he wasn't purposely trying to make things unpleasant. It was strange really, but she chalked it up to his being worried about Thundercracker. After what felt like an eternity she could hear the engines drop in pitch as though decelerating and the nose of the jet pitched upward slightly. She was about to be ejected. And approximately three seconds later she was shooting upward toward the stars with no aircraft. _Thanks for the warning you jerk_, she thought. Evidently Starscream had seen fit to warn the other 'bot because just as she lost momentum and started to come down, Skywarp's large hand caught her with hardly a jolt. If you had a good catcher that could almost be fun.

The meeting spot was situated in a dry creek bed between some hills. The only lights around were several miles away and there were no roads. The other Decepticons arrived within the hour and the group set off in a northerly direction toward the base. There was a low ridge that Skywarp squirmed to the top of while the others stayed hidden. His sensors enabled him to see the tall fence topped with barbed wire and signs attached at intervals advising the reader that it was government property and the use of deadly force was authorized. Oh, please! He'd show them some deadly force the first chance he got. Beyond the fence was row upon row of various aircraft. Unfortunately, they had been unable to determine just where the kind they needed were located in the vast expanse. Astrotrain's photos allowed only for generalizations.

"Are you ready?" Erica heard in the earpiece she had tucked into place earlier. Skywarp was able to transmit his voice without actually speaking out loud. It was like telepathy.

"Let's go," she said in a voice that wasn't even a whisper. The transmitter part of her device was stuck to the base of her throat with a band-aid and caught every word no matter how quiet.

Skywarp lowered a hand and she got aboard. And then the mech began to approach the base crouched low to the ground so as not to leave any kind of silhouette against the starry desert sky. It was amazing how someone of his size and weight could be so quiet especially after being used to the way they stomped and clanged around the base. Instead of just dropping the human on the other side of the fence, he stepped over it with lots of room to spare. He put Erica on the dusty ground and then stepped up to the end of a line of F-4 Phantoms before transforming.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to wait here."

"You think that's a good idea? You kind of stick out."

"I blend in better than you, now go so we can get out of here."

He had her there. Erica looked around before darting across the narrow dirt road to the next line of planes.

Skywarp hoped that the wait would not be long. He watched as the human eventually disappeared beyond the range of his night vision sensors and then began tracking her with another sensor that picked up the signal from her collar. He was left all alone amongst the carefully preserved aircraft. Each one was wrapped with something that covered the canopy and all the engine inlets and exhaust. It was as though they were in shrouds and it gave him the creeps. He knew they were just Earth machines and had never been alive and never would be but it didn't matter. It was a lot like being alone in the Decepticon crypt back on Cybertron.

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_Where in the hell could they have put those things? _Erica thought to herself. She had no idea how far she had come from the fence, but it felt like a long way. She had been hiding and running from row to row but so far had had no luck. Too bad Thundercracker wasn't an F-4 because there were a crapload of them. She recognized them from one that was on static display outside a National Guard Armory near her hometown. Far off to her right she could make out the big bulky shapes of larger craft. Well that wasn't the way to go.

The next row she came to was comprised of more than one type of machine. Shit! What if one of the rows she'd already crossed was the right one? F-15s weren't all that old so there might not be many. _Or maybe they don't have any,_ She thought. This hadn't really occurred to her. Megatron would have her hide if they came back empty handed. _Okay, don't panic. Think about what you're doing._ How would people operate a place like this? This facility had been around since just after World War II at the least. That part of the documentary had stuck in her memory because she thought how cool it would be if they'd still had old stuff like that around, but it was long gone of course. It would make sense that the newer stuff would be farther out from the main buildings since the space closer would already be occupied. _Unless they got rid of a bunch of old junk and put new stuff in that spot. _Her mind added unhelpfully. Screw it, that's the theory she'd go with for now. It might also be a good idea to start going up and down the rows instead of just crossing them.

She took a careful look around and saw or heard nothing. The expanse of clear unobstructed sky was nearly hypnotic. It had been a long, long time since she'd been outside and had a moment to just look without running like a maniac to avoid the cops. She gazed up at the stars for a few more seconds and then took off again.

"What is your current status?" Skywarp asked over the communicator.

Erica had gone deeper into the complex and up and down the entire length of several rows by then. Once she thought she'd found what they needed but it turned out to be F-14s. She bowed under the wing of something she couldn't identify and crouched by the landing gear.

"I'm still looking," she finally replied.

"What's taking so long?"

"One person and a whole lot of ground. I'm looking as fast as I can."

"Alright."

She hoped the mech wasn't getting bored. Anything could happen then. As it turned out, he wasn't bored just really uneasy and wishing he'd stuck to the original plan and gone back to hide with the others. But he couldn't quite bring himself to leave the human completely alone and unprotected. Stupid sentimentality.

An hour had passed and still no luck. Erica would have been tired otherwise but she was far too on edge to realize it. She was pretty sure that she'd heard something, but so far there was no sign of whatever it was. She crept out from yet another hiding place beneath some anonymous airplane and started to move down the row when her foot caught on the edge of a rock sending her sprawling into the dirt. She landed hard, small stones dug into the palms of her hands and one knee and she bit her tongue. There was hardly time for the pain to register as a flashlight came on in the distance.

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Airman First Class Paul Lewis had drank entirely too many sodas and wasn't feeling like driving all the way back to one of the maintenance buildings to take care of the problem that presented. He had been on this shift for a week and still wasn't used to staying up all night. Being a security policeman was cool but guarding the grounds around the AMARC facility was pretty dull. At least he wasn't out here in the middle of nowhere during the daytime being roasted alive. With business taken care of, he was in the middle of fastening his belt when he heard a dull, quiet thump.

He finished with the buckle and slung the M-16 from his shoulder in almost a single fluid motion. His flashlight shone around the barrels and miscellaneous items that surrounded him. Nothing. He began to carefully pick his way past the obstructions when he heard the quiet scratching noise. Something was out there.

Erica had remained motionless until she saw the beam of the light bob around and then begin to advance. She wasted no time in getting up and scrambling back to her position behind the landing gear of the nearest aircraft.

"Is everything okay?" Damn, not now. Skywarp had clearly heard the grunt that smacking into the hard ground knocked out of her.

"Yes," she whispered, her injured tongue making it sound a little odd.

"What happened? You sound funny."

"Nothing! I can't talk now there's somebody out here!"

"Do I need to come to your location?" It was disconcerting the way his voice could go from mildly curious to flat and deadly.

"No, stay there and stand by."

The beam swept back and forth over the area and began to come closer. There was nowhere to run. She had crouched down behind the wheels as far as she could get and waited. The edge of the beam was only a few feet away from her hiding spot. She ducked and waited. Either she would be found or not.

"Well, hey there," said a voice.

Erica raised her head just enough to see the path of the beam. It was close enough to reveal her but it was pointed several yards to the left and spotlighting an enormous jackrabbit. The animal's eyes glowed with the reflected light. She had gone past that very spot not ten minutes earlier. The animal leaped away into the darkness when the owner of the light chucked a small rock in its general direction before miraculously turning and going back the way he came. She did not dare stir until an engine started and she saw a pickup truck with a light bar on top slowly cruise down an adjacent dirt track swinging a spotlight along yet another row of aircraft. The last thing she saw before the spotlight abruptly went off was a very familiar sight.

Skywarp was growing more concerned by the second. His sensors told him that Erica remained stationary for a few minutes and then quickly moved in what appeared to be a random direction that deviated from the methodical approach she'd been following. Was someone after her?

"Hey, I found them," he heard.

"I will summon the others and join you."

There was no sound for several minutes and Erica was about to ask Skywarp what was going on when she saw five enormous forms rise up against the night sky. Amazing. They had made their way to her location in silence. Things went much faster then. The mechs quickly rigged a series of straps and chains around the two aircraft that were selected and then easily carried them out of the facility. Their cargo was lightweight compared to the Decepticon equivalent.

The group became airborne at very low altitude once they had gotten far enough from the base to be safe. Skywarp went in advance of the others to make sure the way was clear, but carrying the stolen planes slowed them down to the point that teleporting wasn't necessary. They ranged far south to stay over the deserts where there was much less chance of being spotted.

Erica was suddenly exhausted when it was clear that they had gotten away with it. Being back with Skywarp was also more pleasant. The engineer was out cold within half an hour and was unaware of the remainder of the trip until they were almost home.

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A couple of hours later she was awakened by the violent shaking of the aircraft and the cacophony of alarms and flashing lights inside the cockpit. The tower was just visible below and then the world began to slowly spin.

"SKYWARP, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?!" She screamed as she grabbed for the control stick and unsuccessfully tried to help the situation.

The tower loomed closer and closer. Just before it was too late the jet righted itself and whipped hard to the left as the alarms and flashing lights stopped. Erica let fly with the most colorful stream of swearing that the mech had ever heard.

He could not help but laugh. "Hey, we're home," he said.

"You mechanical asshole! That wasn't funny!"

"You're awake though, right?"

The human didn't say anything but instead extended a hand at the instrument panel with only the middle finger raised. Skywarp was unfamiliar with the gesture but understood the intent behind it and that was enough to get him laughing again.

"Jackass," she muttered.

What could he say? He was in high spirits over their success so far, the trip back was boring and he had a few minutes to kill while he waited on the others to land and get the cargo inside.

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Megatron and Starscream were waiting when the pair finally got inside and down to the main floor.

"Well done," Megatron said, sounding pleased. He seemed to not even notice the human.

"Thank you," said Skywarp, happy at the praise and relieved that his part of this was over without incident. Erica bowed and said nothing.

"Skywarp, you are free from duty for the next two days." It was a reward, but Megatron also knew that the seeker would be distracted and next to worthless until the fate of Thundercracker was determined. "Carry on," he said, turning and going back to his business.

Erica was mildly annoyed at going more or less unacknowledged. Oh well. That was how it went. Leaders got the glory and the grunts remained invisible. All she wanted now was a shower and something to eat. She turned and started down the corridor.

"Where do you think you're going? _We_ have work to do," Starscream said.


	11. Chapter 11

Author's note: This one was a lot of fun to write. I'm going to try to keep up the current pace, but I don't know. Anyway, enjoy. Transformers are property of Hasbro and Takara and others, no doubt. I wish me, but no. Too bad. Also, don't drink unless you're legal wherever you are.

Come Around  
By: Quetzal1

Chapter 11

XxXxX

Bonecrusher was flabbergasted, and that wasn't a statement anyone got to make very often. He had gone to the repair bay to get some tools for a structural maintenance job he and the other Constructicons were performing in another area. It was easier to just get them himself than listen to Longhaul complain about having to do it. When he walked into the room he thought maybe it was an optic malfunction but no.

There was Megatron's human sitting on one wing of Thundercracker, just polishing away at the light blue paint. She saw him and raised a hand in greeting before going back to work. The seeker was gleaming from one end to the other. The human had been _very _thorough. Surely no one had told her…and he wasn't about to. This was a seeker problem as far as he was concerned.

Erica was almost finished but it had taken nearly the entire day. People had the idea that a jet fighter was small but when you did something like wax and polish one from end to end, it was soon obvious that this wasn't true. The engine had been modified and transplanted and the internal repair system had gone after it at once. The last of the blue substance had dried up and thus far it looked like it was working. They were waiting for Thundercracker to come out of stasis and then they could test it and see if it was truly successful. Before the transplant procedure Skywarp had talked to him.

XxXxX

After having stasis forced upon him, Thundercracker was revived again after Hook had removed the external engine parts needed for the transplant engine. Long periods of stasis without good reason were not recommended. The injured mech had been contemplating his situation for several hours and was more in his right mind than before. He'd been pretty hard on Skywarp and the human and he felt kind of bad about it. They really had only been trying to help, but even so he'd rather be dead than stuck on the ground. He certainly didn't care for being unable to transform and having half his systems forcibly offline to keep him from endangering himself or anyone else, either. Sooner or later they'd have to put him back together. The door slid open and he was rather surprised to see Skywarp approaching him cautiously.

Despite the caution, the gray and purple 'bot seemed to be in an awfully good mood considering what happened the last time he'd been here.

"Hey Thundercracker, are you on-line?" he asked, as though his life had not been threatened.

"Yes. What do you want?" he replied with resignation. He was not in the mood for some kind of feeble attempt at being cheered up.

"I've got good news." He could not help smiling. In addition to his news, his friend was talking to him and not screaming and saying his was going to pull him apart.

"If this is another joke, so help me 'Warp…"

"No, I swear it's not."

"Go on."

"We have a new engine for you."

"Shockwave was wrong and there were some on Cybertron after all?" The sudden change in his voice from abject misery to hope he could hardly dare to believe was heartbreaking.

"No, we just swiped this one. Four of them actually."

"From who?" The blue mech was getting confused.

"From the humans. Of course there's gonna have to be some modifications done before they can install it." Skywarp was absolutely beaming.

"Humans don't have anything like that."

"No but they have something pretty close." He went on to explain the idea and how it was supposed to happen.

"So no one even knows if it'll actually work, is what you're telling me."

"Well, technically, yeah."

In his alt mode, Thundercracker's expression was hidden. He remained silent but held on to the tiniest flicker of hope.

"What do you think?" Skywarp asked.

"I think I don't have any choice."

XxXxX

All the panels had been replaced and the mech was looking filthy. Skywarp told her that his compatriot felt kind of bad about threatening her but probably wouldn't apologize. It just wasn't done. The engineer thought a good cleanup would be a suitable way to express that there were no hard feelings without getting into a bunch of mushy stuff. She saw Bonecrusher come in and gawk for a few seconds before getting some tools and hurriedly leaving. She was not on as friendly terms with him so there was no telling what his problem was. Not long after that she had seen Rumble and Frenzy pass by the open door snickering about something. She didn't hear their conversation.

"Whoa, Bonecrusher wasn't lying," Frenzy said.

"You think she's some kind of pervert or what?" Rumble asked.

"Nah, I betcha she's got no idea."

"Let's find Skywarp, he's gonna love this!"

What was going on? She stood back on one of the maintenance stands admiring her work. Yeah boy, ol' 'Cracker was looking _sharp_. She heard more steps approaching and turned to see Skywarp. He took one look at his sparkling friend and the human standing there still holding a handful of rags and a can of polish and he was unable to stop laughing for entire minutes.

"What? What is so funny?" Erica asked, beginning to get annoyed. She was still kind of ticked at him over the pretending to crash joke.

Skywarp didn't know how he was going to explain this without completely mortifying her. And it was just so slagging _funny_! And what about when Thundercracker found out? That last thought was enough to get him going all over again.

"If you don't tell me what's going on I am going to zap you into next week!"

The mech didn't think she really would, but he had to get himself under control. "Alright, alright. It's just that …" and then he was giggling again.

_Sheesh, when did he turn into such a dumbass?_ Erica thought. He'd been acting pretty dopey since they'd gotten back. If the experiment failed, he'd be as big a wreck or maybe even worse than Thundercracker. She sighed loudly with annoyance and impatience.

"See it's just that what you did was a very…personal thing," he said, having to think of the right term to get his point across and trying very hard not to break down once more.

"What are you talking about? All I did was shine him up a little. He was a mess."

"Yes but…."

"I did that to my car all the time." She was frowning at him, thoroughly not getting it.

Skywarp very nearly lost it all over again. "But your car wasn't alive. With us, that's something you do yourself or it's done by someone very close, what I guess you would consider a mate. Like I said, it's very personal."

Realization finally struck her. Until then, the mech didn't know that humans could change colors. Erica was going a very bright shade of red.

"I guess asking you not to tell anyone is out of the question," she said quietly, trying to muster a little dignity.

"It's too late for that. I heard it from Rumble and you know him and Frenzy will have it all over the place by now."

"I see."

"Hey, don't feel bad, you didn't know any better."

"Are you sure you're not just screwing around with my head again?"

"Oh yeah."

Erica could say for sure that she had never ever been so embarrassed in her entire life. But then something else sunk in that didn't make sense. "Wait a minute. You guys have mates? How would that work?"

XxXxXxXxXxX

The afternoon of the next day was gorgeous with bright sunshine and fabulous blue skies accented with some mare's tail cirrus clouds. Thundercracker was feeling pretty self-conscious. Every Decepticon had gathered on the roof of the tower to see the results of the experiment. He suspected that there was an equal number of his fellows who wanted it to fail as there were hoping for success. He also briefly wondered what kind of odds he was being given in the betting pools that had no doubt come up.

He was able to transform again which was wonderful in itself. He couldn't recall a time where he had spent so long in his alt mode before. The new engine felt a little odd at first. Not bad or painful, just different. He would also have really liked to know how he got so clean, but no one seemed to know or they weren't telling him anything. That part made him feel a little creepy.

"Let's get on with it," Megatron said. He was eager to see the results and have this matter settled one way or another.

Skywarp and Starscream had already taken off and were drifting around in lazy circles overhead patiently waiting on him.

The blue mech leapt upward and fired both engines. The original immediately burned with a bright orange flame and the new one shot a huge cloud of white smoke and dried up remains from the internal repairs before a bright flame came from it as well. Now came the real test: He transformed and opened the throttle as far as it would go, suddenly rocketing upwards out of sight with a colossal sonic boom. His spark felt enormous. Never, ever had he been so happy and relieved.

He turned and came back down to join the other seekers. They eased into formation and began a series of maneuvers that would have made both the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds jealous.

Megatron was pleased. This success would definitely make life a lot more difficult for the Autobots. He looked down to see Erica's reaction. She had been silent except for an exuberant 'WOOOO! GO 'CRACKER!' when the second engine lit and he launched in earnest. He had purposely ignored her contributions thus far to see what would happen. She was shading her eyes and smiling hugely, happy for Thundercracker and to be outside in the sun. It was an expression he had not seen from her until then. She noticed him looking at her and smiled up at him before going back to watching the three jets. Well now there was a look he'd not seen directed at himself for a _very_ long time, maybe not ever.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"DECEPTICON RULE FOREVER!" The cry reverberated down the corridor. Holy crap, but they were keyed up tonight. Erica was taking a little stroll like she did a lot of evenings. Thundercracker was more or less cured and everything seemed pretty close to normal. The mechs had all gathered in a large room and were in very high spirits. She had every intention of leaving them to their revelry. No one had extended an invitation and there was no telling what would happen when they got like this. She passed quickly by the door and had gone several yards when she heard a lot of metallic bangs and then

"Where do ya think you're goin'?" A voice said. It was slurred and weird.

She turned just in time to discover Thundercracker leaning over her and was then swept off the ground. Oh damn! He was going to make good on his threat to tear her apart!

"C'mon, let me go! You can fly again and besides Megatron will be so pissed!"

"Huh? Oh!" The mech said once he figured out what the human was going on about. "No, I just wanted to say sorry about all that ripping you to pieces business."

"What? Really?" Erica asked as she slowly unfolded from the ball she had crunched into.

"Yeah. For a human, you're okay."

"Thanks, I guess."

"Let's go. You should join us," he said, swaying just a bit.

"Are you ok?"

"Sure, I'm just a little over-energized."

Everyone in the room looked to be thoroughly what her mother called "liquored up," All the mechs had partially full energon cubes in one hand and the empty ones were in a messy pile in one corner. They were far more jovial than she would have thought them capable of being. Some of them were standing around talking, others looked to be playing some kind of game and a few appeared to be very much off line. The seekers were celebrating Thundercracker's return to service and most of the others never missed a chance to get over-energized regardless of the occasion.

"Look what I found," the blue mech said, dropping Erica onto a table surrounded by Skywarp, Starscream, Astrotrain and Ramjet.

"Hi guys," she said, unsure of how to proceed. She was in a room full of drunken machinery. It was quite a sight.

"Erica! Have a… oh wait, you can't drink energon, huh?" said Skywarp.

"Nope. Don't worry about me, I'm fine."

"But you gotta drink with us," Thundercracker objected.

She thought for a minute "Put me down, I just remembered something."

XxXxX

An hour and a half later Erica was observing what was probably the world's largest game of Quarters. Energon had been transferred to a large beaker to make the target harder to hit and a large metal slug had been fashioned into their coin. She was pleasantly buzzed on a bottle of wine that she had picked up at some point while stealing groceries and was perched on Skywarp's shoulder. It seemed safer there after the coin took an odd bounce and nearly hit her while she was teaching them the game.

"Ha! Drink, Astrotrain!" Starscream cackled after the coin splashed into the beaker. His aim was deadly. One would think he'd been playing this game forever instead of just having learned it.

Astrotrain raised his head from its resting place on the table with no argument and drained the beaker. After he sat it back in its place, the others watched as his optics suddenly flickered off and he slid from his chair to the floor in a boneless fashion.

"Lightweight," Ramjet said, even though he was swaying around in his seat and looked to be the next candidate for involuntary system shutdown.

"Were you any good at this?" Skywarp said to Erica as she took another pull from the bottle, and then burped quietly.

"Nope, I mostly watched."

"Go Skywarp, it's your turn," Starscream said impatiently. He was thoroughly enjoying inflicting pain on the others and was already anticipating his next turn. Ramjet was going to be his new victim.

The coin bounced and went off the table. "Slag!" Skywarp said and then rested his right elbow on the table. This was the signal for Erica to either run or slide down his arm and jump to the table. She did so without much trouble considering her current state. Upon hitting the surface she put down the wine bottle and replaced it with a small plastic bag she'd stuffed into a side pocket. Rumble was passing unsteadily by just then.

"Hey, what is that?" He asked when he noticed the human gnawing on something.

"Jerky."

"What's it made of?"

"Dried up meat, mostly." Why in the world was he so interested in her dietary habits?

"Wow, you are hard core," he said, shaking his head in wonder and weaving over to plunk down beside a very wasted Laserbeak.

"That idiot thinks you're a cannibal, you know," said Starscream matter-of-factly. Being over-energized made him ever so much more agreeable. He had also absolved himself of the sin of abandoning his friends and would not make that mistake again. In short, he was feeling good.

"What?"

"Oh yes, he doesn't get the idea of species. Animals are flesh creatures and you eat them so you're a cannibal in his optics. Frenzy's too."

The human was nearly convulsed with laughter. That was information she could have some fun with.

XxXxX

The night continued and eventually everyone went off line or wandered drunkenly away.

Thundercracker was unofficially the last mech standing when Skywarp teleported and Starscream ran off to find him, intent upon delivering a beating. Erica had apologized for polishing Thundercracker, pleading ignorance of how private a thing it was. To her great surprise the seeker had seemed extremely relieved.

"That was you?"

"Yeah."

"Aw, why did you have to go and tell him? I nearly had him convinced it was Starscream," Skywarp said.

"You WHAT?" Starscream demanded. "How dare you!" And then he leaped awkwardly to the side, tackling the gray seeker who promptly teleported himself safely away.

"You can hide all you like, it won't do any good!" Starscream yelled, running from the room and staggering back and forth a bit.

"I think it's time to go," Erica said, yawning. "Are you sure you're not all mad at me?"

"Nah, it's okay, just don't ever do it again. Seriously," Thundercracker said, putting his head down on the table.

"Don't worry."

The corridor was quiet. The whole place seemed that much larger when you were good and buzzed. It was a long walk back to her room. She had progressed almost halfway there when she encountered Blitzwing, out cold and blocking the entire hall while still holding a half filled cube in one hand. Shit. She could climb over him but what if he woke up or rolled over? Getting squashed would be a pretty crappy ending to an otherwise good and interesting day. She sighed and went back the way she came.

To pass the time as she walked back to her room the long, long way, she started singing loudly in her deep, off key Elvis-voice.

"_Pardon me if I'm sentimental when we say goodbye…"_

She was about to go into the next line when a hoarse, but ever so slightly slurred voice interrupted.

"Stop that infernal noise this instant!"

"Hey boss, uh… I mean mighty one! Sorry about that." Uh oh! What was he doing over here? It must be his private quarters. She hoped he wasn't a mean drunk.

Megatron snickered to himself. From the sound of it, she had been into whatever humans over-energized on. It was alcohol based, he knew that much. Alcohol was also used as a fuel. He wondered what sort of energon it would make. This ought to be entertaining. He had been at soiree earlier but had left before Erica showed up. He usually didn't stay that long, knowing that his troops would feel obligated to behave themselves to a certain degree if he was around. It was good for them to get a little wild on occasion. When the mood was on him, he could be one of the wildest of them all, but there had been few occasions on this planet that warranted that kind of celebration from him. He was still feeling the effects of the high grade he'd ingested earlier, and it put him in an expansive mood.

"Did you have a nice time?" He asked when he saw her peek around the edge of the open doorway. He was seated behind a console similar to, but much smaller than the one in the command center. Not far away, there was a recharge platform but that was it. It was very stark. There was not so much as some sort of artwork on the walls.

"Yes, thank you. You should have joined us."

"I was there earlier, but I didn't stay long."

"Busy?"

"Yes, but occasionally I like to give them the perceived privacy to fully enjoy themselves without fearing my disapproval."

"So you never get to hang out? That sucks," she said in a sad voice.

The mech smirked. "I assure you it's no hardship." If you weren't thoroughly over-energized yourself, a gang of drunken Decepticons could be quite a burden to endure. They could be a lot to endure under _normal_ circumstances.

"Yeah, but don't you kind of feel left out or, like, bored or lonely or whatever?"

"No."

"Never?"

"No."

"Wow."

Megatron leaned sideways in his chair with his arm over the armrest and put one hand on the floor. Erica recognized the summons and approached a tad unsteadily, even tripping once. She made an awkward jump to the waiting hand and then sat down hard. The mech straightened and rested his hand upon the armrest, looking down at the human with amusement.

"Do you miss the company of other humans?"

"Not really that much."

"I thought you were social creatures."

"Yeah but some of us are more social than others. I mean, I wasn't an outcast or anything and I had friends. But at the same time I'm pretty solitary, and it's not like I'm alone here. Mostly I just miss regular stuff."

"Such as?"

"Like today. You know that was the first time I've been out in the sunlight since I got here?"

"No I wasn't aware. And speaking of today, I take it you are pleased with Thundercracker's recovery?"

"Uh huh. I'm glad he can fly."

"You did very good work."

"Thank you." Ah ha! So he had noticed. "But it wasn't just me, you know."

"Modest as well as diligent. If you weren't a pitiful flesh creature, you _might_ have the potential to be a fairly good Decepticon," Megatron said, and then patted her on the head with a fingertip. He noted she only crunched her eyes closed instead of acting like she was about to be bludgeoned. There was no way to tell if it was the alcohol or if she was actually starting to trust him.

Erica could hardly believe she was hearing this. High praise indeed, in a backhanded sort of way. He must still be drunk. "You really mean that?"

"I do not engage in pointless flattery." It was hard not to laugh at the expression on her face.

"I'm glad you're pleased with my work," she replied leaning a little too far to one side and having to right herself with one hand. The fact that the only time he ever really said much to her was when there was no one else around, had not escaped her notice. Maybe he had to maintain some kind of image.

"That's not to say there aren't ways you could improve and thereby increase your value."

_Hey baby, whatever keeps me on your good side, _Erica thought drunkenly and giggled "Oh yeah? What's that?" In time, she would be sorry she asked.


	12. Chapter 12

Author's note: Remember Ginsu? For those that don't, that was a brand of knife that was supposed to be nearly indestructible. The ads were on tv all the time and would show someone sawing a piece of pipe off or hacking a chunk of wood in half and then slicing a tomato effortlessly and a bunch of other crazy stuff I didn't believe. But enough of that. Transformers belong to Hasbro and Takara, not me.

Come Around

By Quetzal

Chapter 12

Ravage was having fun. It was a little confusing to his programming at first, to chase but not capture, snap but don't bite. Eventually, though, he was able to override those urges and do his job. It wouldn't be any challenge to catch and kill this human. However, Soundwave's orders had been 'motivation' so that's what he would do.

Erica, on the other hand, was definitely NOT having fun. She was running about as fast as she could go and the mechanoid cat was snapping savagely at her backside at every step. Well this would teach her not to get drunk and agreeable around Megatron in the future. He had said there were ways she could become more valuable, and it seemed like a good idea. She would surely become safer if she were indispensable to him, especially when the novelty of having her around wore off. So of course she wanted to know how. First off, he had said, it would be helpful if she could be taken into the field on occasion. Now and then there were temporary bases set up because the operation demanded close proximity. This was more dangerous of course, and could involve fast reaction in order to defend or escape. She had gotten stronger from wrestling around pieces of metal and armor and having to go a lot of places on the run or at a jog at the very least. Still, there was room for improvement. And so the tyrant had set specific goals for his human to meet. In the beginning it wasn't so hard, but then he began to expect more and more from her almost to the point of impossibility. She had improved her strength through a weight-training regimen. This was the last test before moving on to the next step.

At the end of the hall was a left turn that would take her to the end where hopefully Ravage would back the hell off. She dug in and tried to bring out the last bit of speed she had. There was no way any organic creature could outrun a machine that wouldn't tire but she managed to increase the distance between them for a few seconds. She reached the end where Megatron and Soundwave were waiting and was going to stop but Ravage kept coming.

She ran back toward the mechs. "Would somebody call him off please?"

"Ravage, return," Soundwave said, and the cat leapt into the air, folding into his alt mode as a cassette and landing neatly in his compartment.

"So how was it?" Erica asked as she stood against the wall, bent over with hands on knees, trying to catch her breath.

"That was your best time yet, though I think you could still improve upon it. For now it's satisfactory," Megatron said. He looked more pleased than he sounded, of course that conflict was pretty common in several combinations. Unless he was mad, then everything matched perfectly.

The human was happy to hear it as she despised running. Earlier in the process she had been pushed hard enough to actually puke partway through a run. Now she could keep up a steady jog for a few miles and outright sprint at speeds that would easily outdistance the average person. Of course she would have to keep going in order to maintain the current level, but that wouldn't be near as bad as starting from scratch.

"Be in the training simulator in one hour. We will begin the next phase,"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The small table held an array of interesting weapons. Rumble and Frenzy explained each of them. They had constructed the tiny (to them) instruments of death under Soundwave's supervision and were quite proud of their achievements.

"Now, this is a spear," Frenzy said, holding a small metal rod about the same length as Erica's forearm. "It doesn't look like much at first but check this out."

He slid back a little door in the side and pressed a green button. There was a loud metallic 'CLACK' and suddenly the spear was three times longer and sporting a large, wicked looking tip similar to a broad head arrow.

"It doesn't get dull and the whole thing is stronger than steel. Here, try it," Frenzy continued, pointing at a target several yards away. Erica took the proffered weapon and looked at it for a minute. It would be all too easy to slice herself up if she wasn't paying attention. She couldn't even peel potatoes with a knife without getting nicked. It was very lightweight. She held it shoulder high and then threw it as hard as she could. It hit the target on the outer edge well away from the bull's eye but cut right through it and embedded itself in the wall.

"Wow,"

"That was nothing. Watch this," Rumble said, holding another of the spears. When it extended, the tip was glowing a bright, pale pinkish color.

"These are energon charged and will go through most earth metals if they're not too thick," Rumble explained. There was a section of pipe clamped to the table just for trying them out. When Erica touched the spearhead against it, the pipe was cleanly and almost instantaneously sliced off without so much as a spark.

"Hey, Ginsu!" She said

"What?"

"Never mind. What else do you have?"

The small mechs demonstrated a laser knife, which was just what its name implied: A handle from which protruded a jagged, ever shifting 'blade' that would wreak havoc upon most anything on earth, but didn't have much effect at all on anything of Cybertronian origin. This didn't surprise her. They would never allow anyone any chance of gaining the upper hand while in their midst.

In addition to the laser knife there was also a set of throwing knives honed from the same metal as the spears. The small knives were perfectly weighted and balanced. Erica was soon engrossed in flinging them at another target set up across the room and didn't notice when everyone left the room and closed the door.

The adjacent room was the control center for the simulator. From there all manner of things could be thrown at a mech to develop combat skills. It could also do the same for a human.

Megatron tapped a sequence of buttons on a panel that would release the first enemy. He wanted to see reaction and how she would use the new weapons. Each of the new instruments required the user to be fairly up close and personal with the target instead of eliminating it from a distance as one would with some kind of cannon. He wanted her to become familiar with the visceral feel of killing an enemy with her own hands, and hopefully get to like it.

"These are great…you… guys," Erica said, turning back toward the table only to discover she was alone. Behind her a small door slid open in the wall and released some company for her.

Where did they all go? Erica didn't ponder this for long as a scratchy, metallic, almost jangly sound reached her ears. This was something new. And then there was a low sinister hiss. Shit. This sounded like something she was not going to like at all. She was right, spinning around to discover a mechanoid spider roughly the size of a Great Dane. Her legs suddenly felt wobbly and she even stopped breathing for a second or two. Megatron had chosen well purely by chance. Unbeknownst to him, there was nothing his pet hated more than a spider.

The metal arachnid sat there hissing a little more and looking at her with its crimson optics mounted to two short stalks. It had been painted a dark brown and shared the same body style as a black widow. She began to slowly back away while raising one arm. The spider reared up on its hindmost legs, fully exposing its underside and Erica threw one of the small knives as hard as she could. Evidently this thing wasn't made from anything on Earth or else it was a bad throw because the knife bounced off and slid across the floor. Time to try something else. She turned and sprinted for the table where more of the spears awaited, reaching out and grabbing them and the laser knife almost without stopping.

The metal legs of the spider clinked and scraped as it chased its quarry. It wasn't sentient, but instead, merely a drone with the most basic of programming which was to pursue and capture while acting as menacing as possible. It paused and took aim upon its running prey before shooting a stream of web made from extremely fine wires. Erica's flight was abruptly stopped when a wad of the webbing wrapped around her legs just below the knees. She went down hard and the weapons went flying, scattering in all directions except for the laser knife which she held onto but wasn't sure how to activate.

Rolling over and sitting up revealed the spider slowly approaching her. Fuck! She began looking all over the handle for a button or switch before finally twisting a ring that brought forth the jagged glowing blade. It was only a matter of seconds until she was free and running again. If the blade could cut the webbing, then maybe one of the energon spears would _really_ hurt it. The problem was, which ones had the juice? They all looked alike, a problem that would be remedied once this was over. _If I survive_, she thought, not knowing that the drone wouldn't kill her, only beat her up some.

The mechanical pest decided to pick up the pace and greatly reduced the distance between them. Erica had managed to snatch a couple of the spears from the floor and activate one of them, showing only a normal blade. The real problem was getting enough space to get off a good throw.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Soundwave was monitoring the human's thoughts the way he usually did, especially during times like this. He found it curious that after the initial shock wore off it wasn't fear that drove her, but a deep revulsion. Humans were so weird.

Frenzy and Rumble were reacting to everything like it was the Superbowl, flinching and cheering as appropriate. Although at times it was hard to tell whose side they were on.

Starscream had wandered in, curious to see what the others were watching so avidly.

The sight of the human running around clutching the spear with the spider scrambling along behind made him laugh.

"You really didn't think you were going to turn her into some kind of warrior I hope?" He said to his leader.

Megatron didn't remove his optics from the screen and said nothing. He was an observant mech and had gotten to know the human well enough to recognize when she was becoming angry. Patience. Something would happen very soon.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Erica leaned forward and ran as hard as she could. It was enough to get the space she needed to fling the spear at the spider. Though aimed at its head, the shot went wide and instead sheared off a front leg. Marvelous, so she _could_ hurt it. Even though it was a drone and totally lacked a neural network, the machine made a pained screeching sound as would be appropriate if it were really alive.

"Oh, you are DEAD!" she growled at it. Having a missing leg threw off its balance and slowed it significantly. Erica was able to circle back to where the severed limb rested on the floor dripping just a little hydraulic fluid. It was a lot heavier than any of the spears and quite a bit longer. She gripped it at the small, pointy end and waited. The damaged machine came toward her again and when it got close enough, she awkwardly swung the leg like a baseball bat and the large heavy end connected squarely with the glowing red optics, shattering them.

The spider screeched and flailed about, but not for long. There was another loud 'clack' followed by a quiet hum. Jackpot! It was one of the powered spearheads. It was only a machine but Erica was still revolted by its presence even as she advanced on it, gripping the spear over her head with both hands. When she was close enough, she drove the weapon into the spider over and over, cursing at it and punctuating each word with a vicious stab.

"Die (stab) you (stab) nasty (stab) sonofa (stab) bitch!" (Stab.)

The last gouge went especially deep and a jet of energon and hydraulic fluid gushed out and coated the human from the knees down, causing a disgusted outcry. At last the machine lay still and she stood over it breathing hard and trying to settle down. Why should she be disgusted by the very same things she had been elbow deep in when attending to Thundercracker? Maybe because Thundercracker wasn't a damn spider? This last thought made her deliver a savage kick as a parting gift before going over to sit down.

There was silence in the adjacent room.

"You were saying?" Megatron asked as he turned to look at Starscream. The display of brutality impressed the mech. He knew humans could be very violent toward one another like any other species, but it generally took a great deal to provoke most of them into it. He didn't know what exactly set her off, but he liked it. That kind of hostility was something he could work with. The trick would be to harness it and focus it in the right direction. In any case, a performance like that was deserving of a reward.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Megatron would've let her have about anything within reason and THIS is what she picked?_ Skywarp thought, bored out of his CPU but alert for trouble. His charge was lying nearby, hands behind her head, watching the clouds. Erica had been very surprised to be so generously rewarded for destroying the spider drone. When asked what she would like, it took only seconds to decide that she just wanted to be outside in the daylight. Not on any mission or any other kind of business, just free for a while.

The pair were sitting on the side of a large hill covered in long, gold colored grass that swayed in the breeze. They had been there since early afternoon and now it was heading for evening. Erica had promised they could leave after the sun set. This was the longest she'd been outside during the day and she was sorry it was nearly over.

"How can you stand this? It's so boring," Skywarp complained.

"Don't you ever like to go someplace quiet and pleasant and not think about anything?"

"Yes, but I DO something while I'm there, even if it's just flying around or target practice or something,"

"I _am_ doing something. I'm looking for shapes in the clouds,"

"What?"

"See that one?" She asked, pointing at small cumulus that shifted as the wind moved it along.

"Yeah,"

"Don't you think it looks like a cat?"

The mech studied the cloud a few seconds. A quick scan showed that it was just water molecules, though he already knew that much. "No. A retro-rat maybe, but not a cat."

"What's that?"

The pair continued the activity until the sky grew darker. Erica gained a little more insight about her companion. Most of what he saw looked like weaponry of some kind or unpleasant mechanoid beasts, both of which usually required explanation. Skywarp noticed that the human saw everyday things, animals more often than not. Maybe she was hungry again. The sun went down in a brilliant display of color as the moon rose in the east. The afternoon found a place in Erica's mind as one of her more favorite memories. It wasn't the last sunset she would see, but it would be the last of the peaceful ones for a long time.


	13. Chapter 13

Author's Note: Watch out, this one has some bits that are kind of gross and violent. Transformers belong to Hasbro and Takara, of course, not me. Enjoy.

Come Around  
By Quetzal1

Chapter 13

XxXxX

Skywarp had never witnessed puking before. And frankly speaking, he would have been fine with it remaining a mystery. What a colossal pain in the aft end being a flesh creature must be. First you had to consume fuel items several times a day, then there were hours and hours lost to recharge, then the disgusting business of fuel conversion and now this.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah. I guess it was just a delayed reaction. Sorry." Erica was leaning against a small oak tree and did not look good at all.

"We better get going before the others start wondering what happened to us."

"Alright. Go easy on the pitch, please."

"Sure." Of the three seekers, Thundercracker was probably the best at tossing her into the air, transforming and then making the catch. Skywarp (who was the best catcher when they landed) tried but still lacked the blue mech's finesse. Starscream did not care he just avoided any damage that would get him into trouble with their leader.

The pair had been returning with the others after a successful raid on an experimental wind farm, when suddenly she insisted he land immediately. Upon being deposited on the ground, she ran for some low scrubby bushes and threw up on them.

"If it's alright with you, I'd rather you didn't mention this to Megatron. You know, if you can do it without getting into trouble," Erica said.

"If he doesn't ask, I won't say anything."

"Thank you."

The mech decided she still didn't look very good, all pale and shaky like that, but under the circumstances it was understandable. He probably looked a little off the first time he killed one of his own kind, too.

XxXxXxXxX

A good portion of every day after the spider incident was spent in the training simulator. To Erica, it felt like all she did was work and train. She was still learning more medical (after all that she'd witnessed, she had stopped thinking of it as mechanical) procedures and then devoting hours to mastering her weapons and then still more physical training on top of that. She was in the best shape ever and was developing a deadly aim. She didn't even really notice so much when her mechanoid and holographic combatants evolved from spiders and bugs to lizards and big animals to purely fictional creatures to humans. She was mercifully clueless when it came to knowing how much and what kind of study went into making the human holograms as real as possible.

As a sort of reward for being so uncharacteristically agreeable previously, Megatron had sent former scientist Starscream, along with Bonecrusher, to conduct research. Just what exactly would happen if a flesh creature were gored with either kind of spear? How long would they survive? What sort of damage could a laser knife inflict? He wanted the holograms as true to life as they could possibly be. All the better to desensitize you with, my dear.

Lately, most of the energon collection had been smash and grab affairs that did not require much of his time. They had not encountered any more of the human armed forces but were always prepared for the possibility, and that added wrinkle meant more care had to be taken and more things cautiously considered when planning the bigger schemes. It also meant a little extra time to devote to his experiment. Unlikely as he would have thought it, he was actually enjoying hanging around with his pet. Changes were slowly taking place. No doubt the inferior organic brain was the reason for the duality of nature beginning to develop, but it was interesting and fun to watch. Away from the simulator, Erica was the same, as far as he could surmise, but inside it, she was almost someone else entirely. She wore a stony, slightly angry expression and even her walk was different, sort of predatory. She had come to take these sessions a lot more seriously ever since one of the drones holographically disguised as a police officer, beat her up pretty good. It wasn't by chance that all the human disguised drones looked like some kind of authority figure. He was trying to instill a sort of hatred on sight. And it was starting to work. The mech had allowed her to watch news broadcasts on occasion and he could see her visibly bristle when certain images came on the screen. Once there was coverage of a speech by some senators who were pushing to reinstate a draft to assist in "the decimation of the Decepticon menace." Megatron had wondered if she was about to hurl a spear through the view screen that time. She looked angry enough to do it.

There were other things that began and were a sort of counterbalance to the increasing violence. Some might have found it endearing if they were susceptible to that sort of ridiculousness. The main one was that she had taken to being around to greet him when he returned to the base if he'd been away for more than a day or two. Except for Shockwave, he could not recall anyone acting truly glad to see him return from someplace. It confounded Soundwave as well. The telepath detected relief from the human upon the return of their leader, and misinterpreted it. Erica _was_ generally relieved to see Megatron return but it had absolutely nothing to do with liking him, (but if that's what he thought, fine.) It was because it meant she would live another day, probably. Honestly, she had been sure for a while that if he were killed or captured or whatever, that she was probably as good as dead herself.

And then came the mission where things took quite a turn. Subtlety was becoming a key part of strategy. Hydroelectric plants had been attacked multiple times and as a result were much more difficult to take now. Large ray devices definitely attracted too much attention. Oil refineries were about as bad as hydroelectric plants. And then one day purely by accident, Megatron had been scanning earth broadcasts when he happened across a news item discussing experiments being conducted with wind driven generators. Of particular interest to him was a device called a power multiplying link. It was in the prototype phase and as the name implied, it could increase small amounts of power to exponential levels. Being created by humans, it was undoubtedly primitive. However, Decepticon science could improve, perfect and adapt the device to his purposes, he was certain of that. And since this was a fairly small facility that didn't supply any actual cities, who would know if things suddenly went awry? They could create energon cubes as well as take the power link. It should be relatively safe and it would be interesting to see how Erica might interact with other humans after being isolated from them for so long.

XxXxXxXxX

Flying around in a fighter jet that was actually a giant robot would rank very high on anyone's list of the coolest things ever, but when one of them kept you in their hand while airborne, it was almost like flying yourself.

From whatever altitude they were at, the view of Colorado stretched out below was astounding. But was it ever cold. Autumn was upon the area and the height and wind generated by the forward motion didn't do Erica any favors, either. She had kind of forgotten about seasons until the last grocery run when there had been actual frost on some cars. After that some wardrobe additions were appropriated. She was sheltered a little from the wind but it was still sort of cold. Megatron had her in his left hand and the hand was close to, but not quite against his torso. It was sort of like the way she and her brother would carry kittens when one of the tamer barn cats had a litter, except of course they were walking upright and not flying around like Superman. And probably the kittens weren't too worried about being inadvertently squashed. Why in the world Megatron was focusing so much attention on her lately was unknowable. She didn't dare ask. And it seemed like she'd hardly seen Skywarp at all. Holy crap, he surely wasn't jealous or something? No. No way. Not him. Had to be something else. There wasn't time to ponder it further. In the distance she could see several groups of spindly looking windmills, blades slowly spinning.

"Soundwave, begin communication jamming," Megatron ordered.

"Starscream! Dirge! Thrust! You three patrol the area and let no one escape coming or going. The rest of you, ATTACK!"

The main force landed and then the white and silver tyrant blew a large hole in the wall of the facility with his fusion cannon.

"You will find the power multiplying link and bring it to me," he said to Erica, optics ablaze with the thrill of the hunt as he placed her on the ground.

"It will be done," she said, knowing what the item looked like but not really where it would be. What else could she say, 'get it yourself?' She hung back while the mechs entered the building and suppressed any would-be defenders. When the gun and laser fire had stopped she ran inside to start her search. The greeting from her fellow man was not heartwarming.

"Hey look," one of the plant workers, a middle aged woman said, pointing.

"What are you doing with these pricks?" Asked the man standing beside the pointer.

"Don't you guys get it? She's some kind of traitor!" Said a third individual, and then he grabbed a chunk of brick and whipped it at her as hard as he could.

Erica saw him go for the projectile out of the corner of her eye and dodged the debris by suddenly stopping and leaning back a little, before resuming her slow run and going on about her business. The man who threw the piece of brick was shot with low power laser fire courtesy of Scrapper. "That will be quite enough from you, slave." He said, standing over the man and pointing the laser at him. His compatriots helped him up and supported him as they were herded along with the other plant employees to an area to begin the manufacture of energon.

The man with the brick was more evidence. It was just as Megatron had said. How dare that asshole call her a traitor when he was too dumb to see the obvious. The sooner they had enough energon to turn the tide, the better. The Autobots would be made to suffer for all the trouble they had caused, and she would help any way she could.

The short hallway she was in ended in front of a door marked 'AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!' There was a very complicated looking electronic lock on the wall beside the door. Well, how fortuitous. She just happened to have a key. A loud clack followed by a quiet hum could be heard right before she drove one of the energon spears through the area where the doorknob met the jamb. It might as well have been made of Jell-o. The door swung open to reveal a laboratory area. It did not take much longer to find the link. The hard part was figuring out how to shut off the power so she could pull the item from its housing. There was enough noise in the plant and she became so absorbed in the task, that she did not hear the semi stealthy approach of a security guard.

"What're you doing back here?" A voice suddenly demanded.

Erica jumped and turned to see what she thought of as a rent-a-cop with a very big gun pointed at her. The light flashed from her insignia as she spun and the man's eyes got very big and then angry when he saw it.

"JEE-zus! You're with _them_ ain'tcha?"

"Listen, it's not what you think. See, the…"

"Shut up!" He looked at her a few seconds, honestly bewildered. "What's wrong with you? How could you help those things?"

"What? You think I'm gonna side with those lying Autobots?" she replied.

"You're crazy. The Autobots are the only thing keeping the world from being taken over."

"No, that's what they want you to think. They've got everybody brainwashed into thinking the Decepticons are bad, but they're not."

"Get the fuck outta here! Those lousy bastards ought to be melted into paperclips."

Erica was rapidly losing patience with the man. Her green eyes narrowed and glittered dangerously. "You're an idiot! Megatron said this was exactly what would happen. The Autobots would trick everybody into thinking that they were the good guys and then they would take over once the Decepticons were out of the way,"

"_Megatron_ said? That piece of shit is the worst one of all," the guard said, gesturing dismissively with one hand before bringing it back to steady the gun.

"Be careful little man," she said in a low, flat voice that was very similar to her leader, though unintentionally so. Who was this moron to say such a thing?

"What are you gonna do, jab me with your pretty pink spear?" He considered for a moment. "You know, I think I'll do the world a favor and blow you away right now,"

"Oh sure, you'll shoot me down but it's Decepticons who are the evil ones."

"That's right. We don't need any traitors."

Things happened very quickly then. As the guard steadied his aim there came a loud crash in the other room. He turned quickly and saw the slinking form of Ravage approaching. The mechanoid cat growled and leapt away as two bullets struck his shoulder and ricocheted off. It was enough time for Erica to go into the windup with the spear. The guard turned and squeezed off a shot just as the spear took flight. Neither side got away unscathed. Erica felt her left arm go numb and then it felt like it was on fire as the nine-millimeter bullet grazed the side of her bicep. There was a fast, wet splat sound as the spear cut through the guard's midsection and kept going, taking bits of organ and bone and a great deal of blood with it as it exited. He immediately fell with more blood pouring from his mouth. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Ravage silently re-entered the room and scanned the flesh creature on the floor. He was certain of death just by looking but he was leaving nothing to chance. And then there was _their _human. Her arm had blood all over it but she just stood there with a hand on the wound and a shocked, disbelieving look on her face.

There was no dull metallic 'clank' when the spear hit its target and there was no fading away of the human image to reveal a mechanical shell. Erica moved closer to her victim, still holding the wound on her arm. The pool of blood on the floor continued to expand across the linoleum tiles. He was probably in his early 50's, a tad overweight with a lot of gray in his hair and wrinkles around the blue eyes that were open and glazing over and staring at nothing. What had she done?

Ravage may have lived his life in the form of a big cat, and he very rarely spoke (except to Soundwave) but he was as smart as anyone else. Megatron's human was in a state of shock and he needed to do something to get her going again. He stepped up behind her and then gently (by his standards) nipped the back of her leg. It drew no blood but there would be a big purple bruise about the size of a coaster the next day.

"OW!"

Ravage immediately started growling at her. And then she noticed the blood on her hand and arm. Shit. A light jacket someone left on the back of a chair was wrapped around the wound and after a few minutes the juice flowing to the power link was cut off and the prize was removed. As it was described, she'd thought it would be a lot smaller. The link was about the size of the cardboard tube that wrapping paper came on, but was a lot heavier and had a dull metallic skin. It was also kind of awkward to carry one handed. The cat retrieved her spear and she took it reluctantly. They left without looking at the dead man again. It was much too late to do anything there.

XxXxXxX

The energon production was going well. The slaves were behaving themselves for the most part. One of their number had tried to escape but was cut down by laser fire from the sky before he had gone 20 yards from the building.

Skywarp was getting a little apprehensive. The initial raid had gone smoothly with hardly any violence. That was the idea. Take them by surprise and preserve as many workers as possible to use as slave labor. Erica had been sent to get the power link and then Ravage was sent to see what was taking so long and neither of them had come back. He really wanted to go have a look himself, but didn't think it'd be a good idea and besides, that part of the structure was too small for someone his size. He also thought about running a quick scan for the collar's signal, but again, the others would know. Worse than that, Megatron would know, and it never paid to get into his business uninvited. He was able to maintain a neutral demeanor when he saw the pair enter carrying the power link. It was harder to maintain the expression when he observed all the blood. He glanced over at Thundercracker who had also noticed.

"Here it is, Mighty One," she said, choosing to ignore a disgusted remark from one of the plant workers.

"Well done." And then he noticed the blood. "What happened to you?" He asked, crouching to get a better look and taking the power link from off her shoulder where it was steadied by her good hand.

"Sorry if I got blood on it,"

"That is of no consequence. Are you badly damaged?"

"I don't think it's that serious."

The mech saw the blood covered spear hanging limply from her hand. A cursory scan showed that most of it was not hers.

"What happened?" He asked again, sternly, while hiding his pleasure in what he was sure had transpired.

"Eh, there was some rent a cop trying to play hero and he shot me." This caused some applause from some of the braver humans which in turn provoked Laserbeak to send a few shots close to them from his perch on a rafter. "I was trying to figure out how to remove the link and he snuck up on me."

"And then?"

"I tried to tell him what you told me, but he wouldn't believe it and then he decided he was going to shoot me. Ravage distracted him. I threw the spear and he shot me, but it barely got my arm."

"Too bad," a man muttered unfortunately loud enough for Thundercracker to hear him. The seeker didn't shoot, but instead leaned down and flicked him with his index finger. The man wasn't small by human standards, but he flew through the air and into a block wall like he weighed nothing. He would be hospitalized with a fractured skull and broken ribs later on.

"Any of the rest of you got something to say?" He asked quietly in a tone that suggested that they had damn well better not.

"Does the other human still function?" Megatron asked, ignoring the small events happening around him.

"No. He's…he's dead."

"You should attend to that wound. Rumble, assist her." He was disappointed. Her first kill and he had missed it.

It didn't take long to find a well-stocked first aid cabinet outside the break room. After carefully removing the makeshift bandage the wound was cleaned and didn't look so bad. It was a few inches long and at the worst point it was about a quarter inch deep. It probably needed stitches but that was well beyond her tolerance. Pouring iodine on it was probably just as or more painful than getting stitched up. As soon as the brown liquid hit the gash, Erica leaped out of her chair and let fly with several swears growled out in an almost unintelligible, guttural voice through clenched teeth while walking around bent over and trying not to touch the damaged area. When the burning subsided, they found some gauze and then a long bandage to wrap around that. Rumble finished by tying it in a in a big, ridiculous bow. The bandage was small enough to be awkward for him to easily manage. It was silly looking, but effective.

XxXxXxXxX

By the time it was over, they had produced almost more energon than they could carry out. Too bad there wasn't a space bridge handy. No one else died, although the plant workers would have gleefully torn the traitor to bits if they'd had the chance, and she was very much aware of this. Everyone was put into a large, windowless room and then the metal door was welded shut.

Erica was sent home with Skywarp. In her current state, exposure to the cold evening air wouldn't be beneficial.

Most of the flight back was very uncomfortable. The seeker wasn't sure what to say. Even after the unscheduled stop, he was still at a loss. Usually she'd be looking around with interest and asking him all kinds of improbable questions. Now there was just a blank stare and silence. In her mind she could still see the pool of blood creeping across the floor as it expanded, getting closer to the pieces of meat and a few bone shards. And the blank, dead eyes were that much worse.

"There wasn't anything else you could have done was there?" It was more a statement than a question. He did not like seeing her this way and wanted to fix it.

"No."

"It was him or you, right?"

"Yeah."

"And even if you hadn't killed that guy, those other humans wouldn't have hated you any less probably. That one even threw stuff at you before you'd done anything other than walk into the place."

"I know, but…"

"Erica, what you did was the only logical thing. He was the murderer, not you. You were only defending yourself."

"Maybe."

"Slag maybe! There was nothing else to be done." Skywarp was actually starting to get annoyed. What was so hard to understand?

Erica threw her hand up. The other arm hurt too much to be moving it around. "I don't know. Can we stop talking about it for a while, please?" His use of the word 'murderer' had stuck in her mind.

The remainder of the flight was finished in silence. And then he didn't see her again for days.


	14. Chapter 14

Author's note: Transformers are property of Hasbro and Takara and probably someone else. Thanks for all the comments, favorites, and c2s. That stuff is appreciated. Really. And here's 14. Enjoy.

Come Around  
By Quetzal1

Chapter 14

XxXxX

Sometimes Thundercracker got tired of being the one with sense.

"I don't know 'Warp," he said doubtfully.

"I'll teleport and nobody will see me. It'll be fine."

"Alright, I'll cover for you this once but hurry up."

"Thanks."

"Go," the blue seeker said with an impatient flip of the hand. Maybe he'd make himself scarce just incase anyone was looking for Skywarp. Maybe they would think the two of them were off on patrol or something. It was bizarre to him that things had gone this far. Months ago they had brought Erica here in a last ditch attempt to repair Laserbeak and she had somehow managed to survive and actually thrive. Their leader had thrown her and Skywarp together purely by chance and a gradually a strange sort of friendship developed. Even Skywarp himself wasn't sure why exactly he liked the human. Maybe because after being around nothing but violent, loud, mean tempered mechs, who for the most part thought he was kind of dumb, being around just the opposite in about every way was a nice change. Thundercracker liked her as well after a long period of indifference. How could you not like someone who saved your life? That, plus the fact that ninety percent of the time her mere presence irritated Starscream to no end. The friendship wasn't really a secret, but it would not do to let it appear that it had reached the degree it had.

Hanging around together regularly when it wasn't an assignment might just be just enough of an impropriety to get you a whole lot of trouble. But Skywarp was getting a little concerned because no one had seen her in days and the two of them hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms. You could not beat the admission out of the gray and purple mech, but the truth was he simply couldn't stand it if he thought someone he liked was really mad at him.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The room was spinning. Erica tried sliding a leg off the side of the air mattress and putting a foot on the floor. It didn't help enough to matter. She felt like shit, but it kept her mind off being a murderer. It had been three days since the raid. Upon arriving back at the base she had returned to her room without a word to anyone and had remained there. She was tired but could not get the images out of her head. Every time she closed her eyes it just made them that much clearer. There was nothing to distract her from these thoughts. Even the pain in her arm had subsided quite a bit except for when she changed the bandage and generously doused it in peroxide. Some mindless entertainment would have been nice but she didn't have any. Reading was out of the question. Eventually she settled for the easy way out and just got stinking drunk. It wasn't any sort of answer of course, but it would have to do until one was thought of. And she would have to find another one fast because she was out of alcohol and seriously doubted that a trip for more would be allowed.

Everything was such a mess. It had been about nine months since she had come to live among the Decepticons. She had only meant to be what she was in her old life, an engineer, but things had progressed beyond anything she would have predicted. For the most part it wasn't that bad at all. She had seen things that no other human had witnessed and had learned so much. And she had made friends of a sort. 'Had' being the operative word. Ugh, she had been pretty bitchy toward Skywarp who was just trying to help. If she had a best friend here it would be him. Yet another odd development. Initially she had been scared half to death of all of them (except for Megatron, who rated 7/8ths to death) but the seeker had been very decent from the start. He had never threatened her once and he wasn't snotty or mean, well, except for the occasional prank, but that was different. Yes he shot that one guy, but she had managed to overlook or at least understand it as she'd gotten to know them all and their situation better. Maybe trying to fit in really well hadn't been such a great idea, but it was a little too late to be realizing that.

She left the tent and wandered out into the general living area. The inside of her mouth felt dried out and filthy. Water would probably just make her feel crappier but she really wanted some. After getting a glass and easing down into a beanbag chair there was a knock on the door that reverberated around the room and startled her into slopping part of the water onto herself. There had been no warning noise and vibration of approaching steps. That could only mean it was one of two mechs and she was pretty sure Laserbeak wouldn't knock. Actually, _no one_ ever knocked.

"Come in," she called, and winced as raising her voice made her head hurt more.

The door slid upwards and Skywarp entered. Well, speak of the devil.

"Hi," she said.

The mech was a little surprised. She looked even worse than the last time he'd seen her. There were dark circles under her eyes and her clothes and hair were a mess. Some hull decontamination was in order as well. That was quite a risk to run. If she were to be summoned by Megatron, he'd probably not be very pleased with her looking such a mess. Of course he was running a little risk of his own just by being here. A scan told him that she seemed to be functioning normally and had not developed any complications from the damage sustained earlier. That was his main concern. Humans had so many vulnerabilities. It made him even happier to be what he was.

"What brings you here?"

"I was just making sure you hadn't dropped dead or something," he said as he lowered himself to the floor.

"Not yet."

They sat there for a few moments.

"Sorry I was so bitchy earlier," Erica said.

"Bitchy?" He had an idea what it meant but hadn't heard the term before.

"Yeah, you know, unpleasant, grouchy?"

"Oh. It's okay I guess. Do you feel any better?"

"About being a murderer? Not really."

"I meant your damage," he said, pointing at his own arm for clarification, and sounding a little annoyed.

"It's alright unless I move it around too much or when I put a new bandage on it, then it hurts."

After another few seconds of silence Skywarp spoke.

"I guess you didn't think about what I said."

"I did, but…"

"But what? If you keep blaming yourself you'll go crazy. You have to get around this. Are you going to just fall apart every time it happens?"

"Every time? I think my soldiering days are done."

The mech shook his head in the negative. "No way. Megatron has been playing with that power link thing ever since we got back. He's _very _happy with you right now. You have no idea."

"I didn't do anything that any one of the rest of you couldn't have done."

"That's where you're wrong. Your size and intelligence and knowledge of humans makes you far more valuable than you think. There's no way you'll be allowed to just hang around here fixing stuff. And if you're out there, well, you saw how those other people acted."

Erica had nothing to say to that. It was a total catch 22. If she didn't do what she was told, Megatron would do God only knew what to her, and if she did co-operate then every human on the planet would be howling for her blood.

Skywarp sat there watching. Perhaps he had finally gotten through to her. He was about to say something else when they both felt a faint vibration and then heard the sound of approaching steps.

"I wasn't here," he said, and then suddenly faded out in the waves that looked like heat haze. She absolutely had to see if he could do that with a passenger sometime. Not any more than three seconds after he completely disappeared the door opened to reveal Megatron. Erica was a little dumbfounded. What would bring him down here? She was always the one who was summoned. At least she didn't have enough possessions for the place to be trashed.

"Greetings, Lord Megatron," she said, bowing a little even though all the motion did nothing to help her hangover.

"Good evening Erica," he replied. From the looks of things, it was as he'd thought: she was in the grip of yet another of those insipid moral dilemmas that so plagued her.

"Why are you in such a state? Your appearance is disgraceful," he said more with curiosity than indignation.

"I know. Please forgive me. I've been…"_ (On a three-day drunk) _"thinking about what happened."

"Thinking? It seems to me that you have ingested far too much alcohol in an attempt at…something. Forgetfulness perhaps?"

"Yeah, you're right." Why did she feel embarrassed to admit this to him?

"I see. And were you successful?

"Temporarily."

"Yes, well from now until I say otherwise, you will refrain from consumption of any alcohol unless it's a special occasion. Do you understand?" She was showing far too much potential to be allowed to degenerate in such a fashion.

"Completely." Geez, she hated it when he acted like a disappointed parent and actually made her feel guilty.

"Have you properly tended to your damage?

"Yes, I think it's already a little bit better."

The silver and white mechanoid nodded approval. "Make yourself presentable and come to the laboratory in section A6, there is something I want you to see."

There was a gorgeous sight waiting in the laboratory. Stacks of compressed energon cubes were glowing almost too brightly to look at. The colors shifted and changed with no pattern or timing.

"Behold, super refined energon. Each one triple the strength of standard grade," Megatron said, obviously extremely satisfied with it.

"That's very impressive." She didn't ask how he did it. If he wanted her to know he would tell her.

As if on cue, he continued. "The energon we created from the wind turbines was filtered through the power multiplying link after a few improvements were made. In addition to removing any irregularities, the strength was increased without causing any added instability. Your actions will enable us to restore Cybertron that much faster, and crush the Autobots." The tyrant acted almost giddy at the prospect and cut loose with one of his evil sounding laughs that still gave Erica the willies. She didn't seem to be sharing his sense of triumph.

"Why are you not pleased?"

She hesitated before answering, fully expecting him to fly off the handle. " I'm pleased. I'm glad we got the link and everything, but I feel bad about that guard. I don't want to disappoint you, I really don't, but I'm no killer."

_You just haven't learned to embrace it yet, but you will, _he thought before saying; "I am not disappointed. You took decisive action when it was most necessary and still functioned logically afterwards. While it is difficult, you must realize that it will be inevitable from time to time. That is the nature of war after all."

She didn't say anything and looked very ill at ease.

"And don't try to delude yourself into thinking that you can avoid it. After the last raid, the authorities will be aware of you and some will make it their personal mission to destroy or capture you."

Shit. She'd been feeling so guilty that she'd never even thought of that, only considering regular people that she might run across, not the damn Army or a SWAT team or anything. It had never been her goal to be public enemy number one, or on the ten most wanted list. That was it. End of the line. There was no way out of it if she wanted to keep living.

Megatron watched her for a reaction. He was fully expecting her to balk at the idea of more killing. Instead, he got something that pleasantly surprised him.

After a few moments of thought she sighed heavily and looked up at him with a very sad but earnest expression. "Mighty One, you would agree that I haven't asked for much, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"There are two, maybe three little things I would like to ask you for now."

The warlord said nothing, and continued to stare at her with those unblinking red optics, waiting.

"First, I would like a gun of some kind. The spears and knives are very nice and have their place, but if the whole world is going to be out to get me, I'd like something stronger, you know?" _And maybe I can at least make it fast and painless for the next poor sucker_, she added mentally.

There was still no reply, so she continued.

"And the other is that if they do catch me and there's no chance I'll escape, you pull the trigger on this thing," she said, picking up the collar and letting it drop. "I know you said when you gave it to me that it would be activated if I tried to get away or fell into the wrong hands, but I wanted to mention it incase you'd changed mind or something."

She paused a moment and then asked; "Does Cybertron have an atmosphere that people could survive in?"

"Yes."

"Alright, the last thing is that when you guys are done, you don't leave me here."

"Is that all?"

She nodded solemnly.

"Very well."

"Thank you." She would have called it good and left except that she was on one of the control panels and it was too far to jump without injuring something. Megatron was still looking at her as though trying to read her mind. She hated it when he did that and attempted not to squirm beneath the weight of his gaze.

"Why do you never ask for anything frivolous or that will benefit you personally in some way?" He asked in a soft, speculative voice that she wouldn't have thought him capable of.

"Like what?

"Wealth, perhaps a city of your own to rule … things of that nature."

"What am I going to do with wealth? I've been carrying around the same five dollars since I got here. Not only that, if I had it and then you decided to send me back, it wouldn't be as though I could keep it anyway. And what good is a city? I don't want to rule and there'd be somebody trying to kill me all the time anyway. Humans can hold grudges like you wouldn't believe."

"You are content being a soldier then."

"I don't know that content is the word. I'd much rather just be an engineer, but for this discussion, yes."

"Why would you wish to leave and live on Cybertron?" He asked extending a hand at the side of the console.

She answered as she stepped over to her perch, "I've signed my life away. You said yourself that I've declared myself to the side of evil in the eyes of other humans. I can't stay here. Win or lose, once you guys are gone, I'm dead. Provided I survive until that happens of course."

It made perfect sense. And though she was miserable now, someone planning for either outcome was someone who intended to live. Megatron had wondered if perhaps she would become depressed to the point of being suicidal. Humans got that way sometimes. It would be a shame after all the work he had put into bending her to his will. But as usual, she had obviously considered the situation. If only the rest of his troops were as thoughtful. Yes, it was too bad she was just a wretched flesh creature.

"You needn't be so disheartened. As long as you remain loyal, you have nothing to fear," he said in that same weird, gentle voice, as he carefully ruffled her hair for emphasis.

_Yeah, nothing but you,_ Erica thought.


	15. Chapter 15

Author's note: The beginning of this chapter with the parts about Iron Mountain comes from the Season 2 episode The Insecticon Syndrome written by Douglas Booth. I just used a little of it to get started. This isn't a rewrite of the episode. Transformers belong to Hasbro and Takara.

xxxx

Come Around

By: Quetzal

Chapter 15

Busted

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Iron Mountain facility didn't look as forbidding as the name implied. Actually, if it had been made of something transparent, it would have resembled a giant award statuette. The initial attack didn't take long. From her spot amongst the rocks and boulders nearby, Erica had a very good view of the action taking place. She had even been able to try out her new gun on something besides a practice target. It was satisfying to see one of the cannons mounted on a cliff opposite to her position explode in a shower of sparks with so little effort and there was nothing to retrieve afterward like there was with a knife or spear. She had asked for a gun and had been thinking along the lines of a 9-millimeter or something similar. What she received was far removed from anything as ordinary as that. The device fastened around her left forearm. It was like a big cuff that went from the wrist to just below the elbow. When a button was pressed, three arms sprang up and forward, each with a small laser attached. There was also a fourth stationary laser that popped out and functioned as a targeting device. When a control lever was squeezed the arms rotated around the cuff on a small rail while unleashing a vortex of laserfire. Like the spears (which were worn mounted on a carrier on her right forearm), it didn't seem to damage anything of Cybertronian origin, but woe be to anything native to the planet Earth that got in its way.

In the beginning of the assault there had been some difficulty. Erica had even witnessed Megatron getting knocked on his ass by a barrage of laserfire. It would have been funny if not for her own fate being closely tied to his. But shortly thereafter the Insecticons managed to gain control of the cannons and turn them against the defense building. It was fairly routine until there came a roar of engines that could be heard over the sounds of the battle announcing the arrival of a whole crowd of vehicles that were seemingly unrelated; a Porsche, a fire truck and a big red semi for starts. What was this? And then they began to shift and unfold and reveal themselves for what they were. Autobots! She felt an almost sickening wave of anger at the sight of them. Megatron and Soundwave, closely followed by Starscream, had blasted their way into the building and the others were concentrating on the new arrivals. The Insecticons managed to bury the Autobots under several tons of rock but it was obvious that this would only slow them down, not stop them.

But then the big bugs seemed to turn on the Decepticons. One by one Bombshell fired upon them. Erica could see something fly out and hit each of them in the head. He even got Laserbeak and Buzzsaw. (Up until a couple of days ago she had been unaware of the latter's existence. Was there an as yet unseen twin for Ravage as well?)

Megatron emerged from the ragged hole in the wall and shouted something about attacking. All the Decepticons turned and stared at him like a bunch of zombies. Starscream apparently had some idea of what had transpired, since he was plainly heard screeching something about 'cerebroshells' and then Bombshell promptly fired upon him too. He also attempted to get Megatron but the tyrant caught and crushed the projectile and then brought the fusion cannon to bear on the mechanical bug.

_Oh Bombshell, he is gonna fuck you up with extreme prejudice,_ Erica thought. Good. She thoroughly disliked the mercenary insects, and why anyone would deal with them at all was beyond her. But then a series of weird events happened in rapid succession. The Autobot leader having freed the others, made a flying tackle and knocked Megatron flat, the Insecticons disappeared into the defense center and all three seekers began to fire upon their leader and Optimus Prime.

It was frustrating to be stuck back so far that she couldn't tell exactly what was going on. If only she hadn't been instructed to remain at a safe distance. From this vantage point, one thing Erica could see was that the Autobots did indeed have a human with them. Upon closer inspection with the help of binoculars, she saw with disgust that he was just a kid, probably not even old enough to vote yet. Those dirty bastards were co-opting children?! Then it got a little more confused. Megatron fired on the seekers. He must have dialed back on the power because all three were able to get up and run. What a relief. She'd probably still be hours fixing them up later, though. Then two more Autobots showed up and handed something over to their leader and then all of them ran for the inside of Iron Mountain.

It looked like the two sides were working together, which made no sense at all. There wasn't anyplace closer that offered cover. Damn it. And then there was her hypnotized (or whatever was wrong with them) compatriots. All kind of bad things were likely to happen to her if they saw her or remembered she was here. The sounds of explosions and laserfire were easily heard. What was happening? What if the Autobots were working with the Insecticons in some kind of double cross? It was awfully convenient that the mechanical insects had turned on the Decepticons just when the Autobots showed up. So what if Bombshell had caused a rockslide to slow them down? It could be part of some convoluted plan. She had to get closer and worry about what to do once she was there.

The rocks and boulders strewn about kept her hidden long enough that she was able to put the building between herself and the seekers who were just wandering aimlessly in a small area. Laserbeak and Buzzsaw remained perched on the rocks above them doing nothing. Now came a sprint to the building. Erica glanced around to make sure there were no mechanoids from either faction to spot her and then took off for the odd looking building.

Inferno was near the series of holes blasted into the multiple walls and was getting some odd readings. There were Insecticons, Decepticons, Autobots, the defense center scientists and security and Spike. However his sensors were telling him that there was another human fast approaching. Just one, no vehicles or anything like that so it wasn't the military. Maybe it was someone who worked there showing up late? Whatever the explanation, he had better get out there and stop them before they wandered into this mess and got hurt.

Just a little bit further and she would reach her objective. Erica was unprepared for the sight of the big fire truck Autobot emerging from the building and looking right at her as though he'd been expecting this. She immediately stopped and the two of them stared at one another for a second or two.

"Hey, you don't wanna go…" the mech began to say and then his processors alerted him to something.

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Not long after the raid on the wind farm, Optimus had gone to meet with General Sherrod again and had returned with some disturbing news.

"Autobots, I'm afraid the Decepticons have reached a new low and have started to kidnap humans and somehow get them to do their bidding," he had said as he loaded a disc that the General had provided into Teletraan 1. The screen showed side by side still photos of the Terradyne labs both before and after Starscream's visit.

"This technological facility was attacked almost an Earth year ago. A technician who had been there working late that night has been missing ever since," A picture of a human female came onto the screen. "Her name is Erica Dawes, and until a recent assault on an alternative power plant, no one knew what had happened to her," The screen changed again to show a sort of grainy black and white image.

"This is video assembled from several different a security cameras at the plant," he said as the group watched the screen intently.

The view was unremarkable. Many humans were going about their business when the wall suddenly imploded. There was general confusion. Some people ran away, others stood there stunned and a few security guards ran forward with their guns drawn, for all the good it would do. Familiar shapes of many Decepticons emerged from the dust and laserfire soon took care of any security personnel. There were general noises of disgust and anger from the group as they watched the event unfold.

As the dust and confusion settled, the video image got darker except for a circle at the bottom of the picture that was lighter in order to highlight the important part. A smallish human ran into the building and to the left of the screen, disappearing from the image. There was then a series of shots showing her progress through the halls. It was definitely the same person. Though most of the video was grainy and shot from high angles, there were a few times where a good straight on shot was obtained. She was a little thinner and rather angry looking compared to the still photo at the beginning, but it was definitely the same person. The video jumped to the confrontation with the guard.

"This is the worst," Optimus warned them in an unhappy tone.

There were noises of shock when the spear tore into the guard. How would any human willingly kill another to help the Decepticons? The disk ended with a still shot of Erica that had been taken from the video and cleaned up and colorized. She looked dangerous as well as pissed off and the collar was prominently included. What none of them saw was her reaction to her deeds and the assistance of Ravage in getting her going again. The whole thing did a good job in making her look like a cold, remorseless killer.

"Why? What could Megatron be offering that would make someone do that?" Bumblebee asked, shocked at what he had witnessed.

"No one knows. But what the military has requested is that if we should encounter this human, we capture her alive and detain her until she can be turned over to them. It is believed that she would have valuable information,"

Privately, Optimus Prime wondered what would happen if she _didn't_ have any real information. He could not get General Sherrod to grasp just what kind of ruthless, cunning evil they were dealing with when it came to Megatron. He could be forcing her to do his bidding in order to spare a family member. The Decepticon had an infinite capacity for maliciousness but he also had a gift for persuasiveness when he chose to use it. Would it be fair to punish someone who was under that spell? Still, it wasn't their planet and they were bound to co-operate with the authorities. If they could, they would capture the human.

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The presentation flashed through Inferno's memory components in a fraction of a second.

"Your name is Erica, right?" He asked, trying to appear as non-threatening as he could.

She looked shocked for a second or two before snarling her reply ("Cram it, rust bucket!") and attempting to shoot him with a laser device.

"Ow! Stop that!" Inferno had a hand up to shield his optics from an errant blast. It wouldn't do any damage to the rest of him, but it sure stung. He made a gentle grab at the human.

How? How did this talking trash can know her name? She ducked as his hand swept overhead generating a pretty good breeze as it went. Time enough to think about that later, for now she had to escape. It was here that she made a crucial mistake. Erica suddenly took off to her left, running as fast as she could. Inferno was right behind her. It wouldn't be much of a contest if he weren't trying not to hurt her. Fortunately for the Autobot, this was the wrong direction. If she had gone to her right, she would have run into Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp, who were beginning to come out from under the influence of the cerebroshells. The three of them were kind of groggy but they would have put up a fight. As it was, the human and the Autobot were just hidden by the building as the three of them approached the hole in the wall.

It was becoming apparent to Erica that she wasn't going to outrun the Autobot, who with one step covered about fifteen of hers. At least he hadn't shot at her yet. Not yet, but soon. Inferno knew he needed to try something else. He couldn't risk injury to the human and if she got back to the rocks, she might have a chance to get away. He transformed and took aim.

No longer hearing the heavy clanking steps behind her, Erica was beginning to think she might just make it. The rocks were so close. Suddenly the world turned hard, cold and blurry. She smacked into the ground and rolled, felled by a large burst of high-pressure water. Before she could get up, everything went dark. The Autobot wasted no time getting to the spot where his quarry lay stunned and forming his hands into a sort of dome and placing them over her.

"Let me out! You are DEAD, do you hear me?!?" And as though in response to this threat, she could hear the sound of jets launching. Ha! But then instead of getting louder, the noise faded as the Decepticons pursued the fleeing Insecticons. Uh-oh. She got very quiet as a sick, sinking feeling came over her.

_Don't panic_, she thought. Megatron had told her that events might warrant a sudden departure and all she had to do was lay low and someone would be back for her. Of course no one had factored in the whole getting caught part. And if things weren't bad enough, the makeshift walls began to close in. Maybe some panic was in order after all.

The defense computer was going to need extensive repairs but the information it contained remained safe. The scientists had taken it to a subterranean area to await transport somewhere else while the building was fixed up. Optimus was about to give the order to roll for home when Inferno approached from around the corner of the structure looking kind of nonplussed.

"Where did you go? You missed the best part." Wheeljack said.

"I got some weird sensor readings and I thought I'd better check them out,"

"So what was it?" They were all looking at him curiously. A muffled metallic clanking noise was issuing from inside his hands.

"It's that human," he said, opening his hands to reveal Erica who had been kicking and trying to stab him with a spear in an attempt at escape.

A whole lot of pale blue optics were looking at her. She was surrounded and it was much too high to jump and her weapons obviously didn't do much to these guys. Well, damn.

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The fusion cannon thundered and Megatron silently cursed as the distance and the wind made the shot go a little wide. The Insecticons would live another day. They had not escaped unscathed and that small compensation would have to do for now. The pursuit had gone for a great distance. The Autobots had surely left the area around the defense center by now.

"Laserbeak return to Iron Mountain and retrieve Erica," he ordered.

The small 'bot peeled away from the main group in a wide arc and set out on a northerly course.

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These guys might be the evilest things alive, but man, oh man could they put up a good front.

Erica was sitting in a little cell in what looked to be the command center of their headquarters. Her confinement area had been hastily constructed and if she had her weapons it probably wouldn't be that tough to bust out. They confiscated the laser and spears and the belt that held everything else but had missed the two sets of small throwing knives. One set was stored in each boot well out of sight, but those wouldn't be much help and she was never left alone long enough to get to try them.

A few times one or another of the Autobots had inquired as to her well being and tried to draw her out. Their efforts were met with stony silence or an obscene gesture. Or in Ironhide's case, a cryptic "Get lost, Jethro." Although she wondered why he would have a regional American accent like that. Probably something to endear himself to people more easily. These assholes were in for a surprise if they thought they were going to trick her into joining up with them or telling them anything important just by pretending to make nice. The attempts were persistent, that was for certain and boy, could they act concerned. Most likely it was just to maintain the illusion in front of their humans. The kid, who they called 'Spike' was even trying to find out what her deal was.

"Here you go," he said carefully placing a bag from some fast food takeout window between the glowing bars of her cell and onto the floor. He received a fierce stare for his efforts.

Erica could have gone for something to eat. Ever since getting into such good shape, it seemed like she was hungry all the time. Well there was no way she was eating that stuff. They might have poisoned it or put something experimental in it. Being Megatron's pet was one thing but an Autobot's lab rat was out of the question. And speaking of him, had any of them discovered she was missing yet?

"What did these creeps promise you, kid?" Erica asked in a low voice.

"They didn't promise anything," Spike was baffled and surprised that she had finally spoken to him.

"You mean you're helping them for nothing?"

"Yeah. They're going to save the world from the Decepticons, of course I'm helping them for nothing,"

"Aw man, you don't really believe that do you?"

"Sure I do,"

"They aren't going to save anything. They have the governments believing that and all you guys too, but what they're really wanting is to kill every Decepticon so that no one will be in their way when they're ready to take over,"

"That's crazy," Though there was a set of bars between them, Spike backed up as if the obvious insanity of the occupant was catching.

"'Fraid not,"

"Everyone knows that the Decepticons are evil. Why else would they steal energy and cause so much destruction?"

"Why not? The Autobots already have everyone snowed into thinking they're bad so it's not like they could ask politely and get it,"

While there was a certain logic to that, Spike shook his head and walked off.

_Dumb kid._ Erica thought. Of course she remembered being that age and being so sure in her convictions. He'd eventually learn the hard way. A few minutes after Spike left, she was visited by the big boss himself.

Optimus had crouched so as to get a better look at their guest. He could see some fear but it was mixed with a whole lot of anger. He attempted to explain what everyone else already knew. She was silent for a long time before finally giving him a response.

"Slag off. Slag off or kill me. You won't win me over, liar."

The Autobot was unaccustomed to such hostility from humans. What had happened to cause it?

"We don't want to harm you, only understand why you would side with the Decepticons,"

"You can ask them when they show up to get me,"

Optimus shook his head. This poor misguided human was in for more disappointment. "No one is coming to get you except the proper authorities,"

"Uh huh,"

"That's the way Decepticons are. You've served your purpose and now they've discarded you,"

"Bullshit." She didn't seem worried at all. This fucker was just trying to jerk her chain with his lies and slightly pitying tone. That's what they did. The fact that her head was still attached to her body indicated that something must be in the works, but then no one would know that except her.

"Suit yourself," the mech said as he left her and continued his duties.

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Laserbeak had returned and not with good news. He was glad that there was no shoot the messenger policy. From the safety of his playback compartment he relayed the information he'd collected. A repair crew had confirmed through casual discussion what the mechanoid raptor had suspected after thoroughly scanning and searching the area. The Autobots had captured their human.

Skywarp was feeling guilt ridden. If he'd just ran a cursory scan all of this could have been avoided. But it was so hard to think at first when the cerebroshell had quit working. He had no concerns that the Autobots would do her any harm. Of course not, but what if they turned her over to the police or something like that? And worse still, what if Megatron decided not to get her and just activated the collar instead? He wanted to say something but didn't know what.

'_Warp, calm down and don't do something stupid. Just wait,_ he thought to himself, but staying quiet was so hard. He looked at Thundercracker who gave him a very pointed stare. The blue seeker could practically read Skywarp's mind just by watching him stand there shifting his weight back and forth impatiently. It was a slight, constant motion that had become very familiar over the many years.

Starscream was not at a loss for words and didn't care who heard him. Finally! They were rid of the human and he was unable to resist rubbing it in.

"Well Megatron, I guess you'll have to find another hobby," He could hardly contain himself. "Don't feel bad. Maybe we could get you a cat or something,"

Megatron stood there glowering for a few seconds before he spoke. "We will begin a recovery operation immediately," he said calmly.

"If this doesn't prove what I've been saying all along, nothing will!" Starscream said, jumping at the perceived opening.

"Behold your _leader," _he continued with blatant contempt. "The mighty Megatron getting sentimental over a worthless human, and risking your lives for its recovery. No one with this kind of weakness is fit to rule,"

The circle slowly expanded. All of them had seen this enough times to know what was about to happen. Soundwave stood by looking emotionless as he always did. Here it comes. Why was it that of those three seekers, everyone thought Skywarp was the dumb one? Their leader had been not only double-crossed today, but also thwarted in his goal. And now his hobby/pet/experiment was in Autobot hands. He was a bomb waiting to go off, and there was Starscream dinking around with the detonator.

Megatron had remained silent as his Air Commander ranted on an on. And then the traitorous worm added the final insult: he had the nerve to turn his back. The short limits of the mech's tolerance had been reached. It was like flipping a light switch.

Starscream was so caught up in the moment that he didn't notice the others quickly moving away from him. A cold, heavy hand on one of his wings got his attention and before he could react, he was spun around and slammed into the wall hard enough to scramble his visual sensors for a second or two. By the time they cleared, Megatron had lifted him off the floor and pinned him against the wall. The incensed tyrant was close enough to kiss him, if their species had engaged in that sort of thing, and the ruby optics were so bright it almost hurt to look at them, but at this distance it couldn't be helped.

"I must admit that there _is_ an area in which you excel. You never fail to demonstrate why no one will ever follow you, Starscream," Megatron said quietly, almost pleasantly.

"Yes, we _are_ going to recover a puny human," he continued, the tone of his voice sliding from conversational to sinister like a storm cloud blotting out the sun. "But you forget …it's _MY_ puny human, and as you well know…_NOBODY… TAKES… WHAT'S… MINE!!!_" After each one of the last four words, the hapless seeker was slammed against the wall as though to underscore them. Once he was able to stand again, the order to move was given. At dawn, the Autobots would be made to suffer for this insult.


	16. Chapter 16

Author's Note: Transformers belongs to Hasbro and Takara and others, but you knew that. As always, thanks for all the comments.

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Come Around

By Quetzal

Chapter 16

"_It's not easy bein' evil, but evil's what I be" - Zorak_

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Autobots came and went. Some of them expressed curiosity and others paid no heed. Erica watched them closely and tried to commit to memory anything that looked like it might be important. She could see her weapons on the far side of the room just sitting out in the open on a table. It wasn't so high that she couldn't get up there, but first there was the matter of the makeshift cage.

The interior of this ship had orange tinted metal on every surface as opposed to her own home that was blue-grey. There were jagged rock formations that had punched their way down through the ceiling and the temperature was nice and toasty. It seemed almost hot after all the time undersea. She had even seen a few other areas. These guys had installed the proper restroom facilities at some point. The main hallway to the wide-open entrance was just outside the door. The biggest obstacle was that she was never, ever alone. Someone seemed to be on duty all the time and then others would come in and hang around a while and then go off to do whatever they had to do. It was like Grand Central Station in here.

Currently Cliffjumper had the watch and Powerglide and Warpath had come in to b.s. Erica did not like any of them of course, but some of them ranked lower than others. Powerglide seemed way, way too fond of himself and Warpath was driving her absolutely crazy simply because of his inability to get through a single sentence without interjecting various enthusiastic sound effects such as "blam!" and "pow!" every few words. She fervently hoped he was the first one shot when they busted her out of here.

She looked down at the emblem hanging from the collar. So far, so good. They could track her with this thing though they probably knew right away where she was. What was taking so long? They had better hurry, because there were some feds on the way. The guy who had called looked like Army to Erica. He was in uniform and was fairly distinguished looking in that way that you could tell took some effort. He was all business and dealt with the Autobots in a very crisp fashion as though he wasn't crazy about them himself. They planned to take custody of the prisoner as soon as they could and were expected in the early morning.

_Custody. You wish, Colonel Klink._ Erica thought. Still though, she had just a tiny bit of uncertainly. What if Megatron was only waiting until he was sure she was someplace where the bomb would do the most damage? It was just the kind of thing she could imagine him doing. Then again, as much as he hated Autobots wouldn't this be the place? She shouldn't doubt because that just confused things and then her mind was chasing its tail. She was tired. It had been a very long day. The take out bag was still sitting right where Spike had left it. Her stomach rumbled as though trying to persuade her. Nope. Forget it. She walked to the back of the cell and slid down into the corner. It wasn't comfortable but it would have to do. _C'mon guys, don't leave me hanging, _was her last thought before sliding into a heavy doze.

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Carly was fascinated. The Decepticons had a human helping them and it turned out to be a young woman who surely wasn't all that much older than herself. At least it didn't look that way. She had called before coming out to the wrecked spacecraft and Spike had told her all about Erica. Some of the description brought a little twinge of jealousy. That was a dumb way to feel but she couldn't help it. As with a lot of young men his age, Spike was clueless as to Carly's feelings for him. The younger girl began to size up the prisoner. She was really pale, but living at the bottom of the ocean would do that and all the black clothing didn't help. Some makeup wouldn't hurt though. And that hair needed some styling too.

"The hell are you looking at?" Erica said, barely moving from her position but giving the blonde girl a baleful stare, as though reading her thoughts.

"I…I was just making sure you were ok,"

"I'd be better if I was out of here," As she became fully awake, her vision sharpened. This was another kid. Unbelievable. But she was plainly surprised and possibly a little rattled. Was there a way to use that?

"I can't help you there, but I brought some breakfast," she replied cheerfully, gesturing at another fast food bag that had been slid between the bars.

Erica glanced across the room and saw similar bags on a human sized table. "What's in those?"

"The same thing. Why?"

"How about trading this one for one of those, hmmm?"

"Sure, but nobody here is going to poison you,"

"I prefer not to take the chance,"

Wow, talk about paranoid. But so far she wasn't as nasty as Prowl had told her she'd been. Carly went back and swapped out the bags as requested. Spike and Mr. Witwicky had been up most of the night helping to patch up the Iron Mountain facility and would be ready for breakfast of some kind. They should be back about anytime.

"Why don't you join me? I hate to eat by myself," Erica lied.

"Um, ok," Carly agreed. Maybe after she'd had time to think about everything and get a little sleep she was feeling bad about her earlier behavior. And maybe Carly's hunch had been right. She had suggested to Prowl that if she, another female, were to try talking to the prisoner, it might lead to something. The 'bot had agreed but warned her to stay well out of Erica's reach.

After the bag was cautiously put in her cell, Erica got up from her corner and then sat back down near the bars. The bag contained a sausage and egg biscuit and a brick like chunk of something that was supposed to be hash browns as far as she could tell, and then there was coffee to wash it down with if it was as rubbery as it looked. It had been so long since she'd had fast food she'd almost forgotten what it was like. It would have been easy to wolf all of it down in just a few bites but she maintained nonchalance.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Carly,"

"What do you do here?"

"I just help out wherever they need me. I don't get to be here as much as I like, but I visit when I can."

"Oh? Why aren't you here so much?" Erica asked, not looking at her and pretending not to be that interested.

"I'm away at school most of the time,"

"You don't look old enough to be in college. Where do you go?"

"I'm not really, but I skipped a few grades. I go to MIT,"

"Well, well." That was pretty clever of the Autobots. Befriend this kid and then infiltrate the scientific community through her. It was worse than Erica had thought. Man, these guys were shifty.

"You worked in robotics didn't you?" Carly ventured, cautiously.

And then for the next half hour they sat there and discussed things of a scientific nature before things turned more banal and included what Erica supposed most people thought of as 'girl talk.' Ugh. _Megatron, feel free to get me out of here any time now!_ She thought, as Carly was going on about some sort of club she was in at school. It was curious that she didn't ask anything about the Decepticons like everyone else. What was she up to?

There was noise in the outer corridor. A very faint light was creeping in as well. It must be about dawn. Shit, how far away were the feds? Carly was still going on about something, by then Erica had stopped listening. Her salvation came not in the form of any Decepticon, but instead Spike, Sparkplug and several Autobot mechs. The girl excused herself and then went to greet the others. It was patently obvious that she had a thing for Spike. Well, wasn't that just too _cute_? Bleah. That was the longest she'd talked to any human since living among the Decepticons, and it confirmed her suspicions that she hadn't been missing much. It was hard to imagine living freely among other people again. She just couldn't relate any more and didn't really want to. She'd much rather hang out with a bunch of seekers or something. Even that dopey Blitzwing was more interesting than this.

Prowl had stepped into the command center and asked to have word with Carly, curious about how her attempt to interact with their prisoner had gone when a faint whistling sound caught everyone's attention. At about the same time Teltraan 1 began going crazy with warnings of an imminent Decepticon attack.

Yes! The screen showed pretty much the entire Decepticon army as it was on Earth. They had come for her! In that one short moment, even though Erica herself was unaware of the fact, Megatron had finally achieved his goal of winning her absolute loyalty.

The whistling became a shriek before terminating in a kaboom that caused a few small rocks to break off and crash to the floor. Then came a roar of jets and more missile fire. Erica could hardly control her joy.

All the mechs and the humans began running toward the door. Erica thought she was about to have some good luck. She was more than ready to try an escape, but then Ironhide decided that someone needed to stay and keep an eye on the prisoner. Carly got the job_. Oh, sure, make the chick stay back where it's safe. _Erica thought. That was one thing about Megatron; he was equal opportunity all the way. Of course they couldn't possibly know that it really wasn't any safer in here.

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The jets had broken into two groups of three and were lighting up the area with an overlapping pattern of laserfire and bombs that was very effective at keeping anyone from advancing far from the crashed ship.

The others contributed additional fire from various points on the surrounding rock formations. The Autobots had been caught unaware, fully expecting no effort from the Decepticons to retrieve the human, however it did not take long for them to attempt counterattacking. Ravage was dispatched with Buzzsaw to infiltrate the enemy's citadel and free Erica. They were nowhere near the opening and it was heavily guarded. The fight could go on all day. Ordinarily, this would suit Megatron fine, but his troops would run out of energy if it went too long. They were not fully recovered from the last encounter. What they needed was something to give them the overwhelming advantage.

"Laserbeak, bring me the flesh creature they call Spike," the tyrant commanded.

The raptor screeched a reply and then waited for his opening.

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_Would you puh-leeze shut up?_ Erica thought. Carly had been attempting conversation while nervously watching the developments outside on the huge view screen. She was worried about her friends and evidently, nonstop yakking calmed her nerves. Erica considered the hidden knives. At this distance she could hit the mark with one eye closed, and get some quiet. But then she'd still be locked up. An idea occurred to her the way they sometimes do when you aren't thinking of anything in particular. It was the oldest trick in the book and cliché as could be, but this was a kid she was dealing with, MIT scholar or not, and she was already distracted and worked up.

"You're worried about Spike aren't you?" Erica asked, pretending to be sympathetic.

"I guess I'm pretty obvious, huh?"

"Very. But driving yourself _(and me)_ crazy won't help,"

"I can't help it. Those Decepticons will tear him and the others apart if they get the chance."

_Yeah, well that's what you get for provoking them, _Erica thought. "That's not so. You just don't know them like I do," she said.

"There's no way you can convince me they aren't evil. They tried to drown me once you know,"

"Really? What did you do to bring that on?"

"It's a long story. To cut to the chase I went to their headquarters and planted a bomb on it,"

"Geez! What did you expect after a thing like that?" This chick had the stones (or stupidity) to single handedly try to bomb Decepticon HQ? Astounding.

"I know how it sounds but I had a good reason,"

"I don't know about…" Erica's sentence trailed off and the half full coffee cup she was holding began to violently shake.

"What's wrong?"

Erica didn't reply. Instead, her eyes rolled back and she collapsed onto the floor, violently jerking all over.

Carly was scared. What was wrong? It could be anything, a seizure of some kind or an aneurism maybe. She gave the screen a quick glance. The battle was still raging so there was no help there. Erica abruptly stopped twitching and became still. It was unclear if she was breathing or not. The girl decided to risk it. She wasn't sure if there was anything she could do, since all she knew was basic first aid and CPR but she had to try.

Erica heard the sounds of running and then humming of the bars stopped before the running steps came toward her. Un-fucking-believable, it was working! She felt Carly kneel beside her and gently shake one arm.

"Hey, can you hear me?" Carly asked nervously. She jumped, very startled, when the woman's eyes popped open.

"Loud and clear," Erica said and then punched the girl in the face as hard as she could. Carly was stunned and fell back clutching her bleeding nose. Erica was up and running toward the controls for the cell doors and cradling her hand. She'd had no idea that such a thing hurt so much, and she'd hit the nose, which was relatively soft compared to anyplace else on the face. The control for the door was simple, just a big lever marked on and off. She knew its location from when they had allowed a restroom visit. Success! She paused to carefully flex her hand. It hurt a lot but she didn't think anything was broken. The next stop was to retrieve her weapons. She activated the laser gun to make sure it worked and also extended a spear. Nobody organic had better get in her way. She turned to look at Carly who was standing and still holding her nose below eyes that were watering and very scared. Blood was starting to drip from between her fingers. There wasn't any question that Megatron would be pleased if she were to off this kid, and she did bomb their base once. But on the other hand, she _was_ a kid and had actually tried to help her even if it was the stupidest move ever. There was a sound in the outer hallway. Screw this, she'd better get out of here while there was still a chance.

"Your lucky day, kiddo," Erica said as she ran to the door and then into the hallway after a fast peek in both directions. Sounds of fighting were very loud up ahead. A black and yellow shape swept around the corner and came toward her. It was Buzzsaw who shrieked and continued past her to make sure there were no pursuers. Erica was looking up and so nearly collided with Ravage when she went around the same corner. He and Buzzsaw had carefully made their way inside when Laserbeak had provided a great distraction. The cat actually seemed kind of surprised to see her, though it would be difficult to describe just how that impression was given. He flinched to the side and actually stopped snarling for a few seconds.

"Boy am I glad to see you guys," Erica said.

As usual, Ravage said nothing but started growling again and snapped his teeth together at her twice with a loud metallic bang before turning and running back the way he came. Was that some kind of mechano-feral 'hello'? Her family had once owned a dog that would do that when he got overexcited from playing fetch. Either way now wasn't the time to wonder. She took off after him as he made for the exit.

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Laserbeak had streaked toward the gap separating the opposing factions. With his impeccable timing he hit the area just as the jets stopped firing to avoid hitting each other. His target was right in front of him with no shelter. Just a small outcropping of rock would have been enough to thwart the attempt, but unfortunately for Spike there was nothing behind him but a vertical cliff. The Autobots fired upon him but the raptor was able do deviate from his trajectory just enough to dodge the shots. Without slowing, he struck his target.

Spike felt like he'd been hit by a brick wall. The 'bot grabbed him and sharply turned upward in the same motion. The metal talons clamped on to his shoulders so hard he was afraid there would be broken bones. The sheer rock face of the cliff rushed by him in a blur before Laserbeak rolled to the side and went back the way he came. He did not did not leave much room. Thrust passed by at an angle so close that Spike could have traced a line in the dust on one wing with his finger if he had reached out. The engine noise was nearly deafening and he felt the heat from the exhaust. He was totally disoriented by the time he was rudely dropped in the dirt in front of the Decepticons who had gathered on top of one of the low hills.

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The coast was clear and it had gotten abnormally quiet. Ravage did not waste any time running to the route that would take them to top of the hill. It wasn't the easiest of climbs, especially with a stiff hand that was swelling a little bit but Erica managed to follow the cat while Buzzsaw provided air cover for both of them. His was the easiest job. Neither side was shooting anymore. Ravage leapt up and over the last obstacle and was out of sight. After a minute or two the engineer followed, finally pulling herself over the ledge while chancing a glance back and down at her former captors. They were watching closely but nothing more. They surely weren't giving up were they?

"Greetings, Erica," Megatron said.

"Greetings Mighty One," she replied, snapping to attention and then swinging her right hand up to thump it against her chest just below the left collarbone. It didn't do much for the pain in her hand, but she would accept nothing less from herself than the strictest formality in front of their enemies.

"Ravage tells us that you escaped on your own. Well done,"

"Thank you. Once the right circumstances were in place, it wasn't hard," Ravage told them? Crap, had he finally said something and she missed it?

"What did you do to Carly?" Spike demanded, as he began to furiously struggle against the grips of Rumble and Frenzy who had him firmly by each arm.

This sanctimonious bullshit was getting really, really old. Erica merely looked at him with disdain and twirled the spear baton style. "Take a guess," she said, before stabbing the wicked looking device into the ground, underscoring the implication.

"What kind of monster are you?" he demanded, so upset he failed to notice that the spear and its owner were both free of any gore.

While he struggled further and looked helplessly to his companions, Erica looked at Megatron and tiled her head toward the spear and then shook it in the negative.

The mech smiled just a little bit. So she was just mentally torturing the boy. How very cruel of her. If she kept it up, it might get to the point where he actually liked her, despite her humanity. He _would_ ask why she didn't really kill the person, though.

All six of the seekers joined the rest of their faction. They made a very formidable group and now they had a distinct advantage. Just as Megatron was about to taunt his ancient enemy a recognizable sound intruded on the moment. It was a helicopter, and it was close but still hidden.

"There," Starscream said, pointing to an opening in a nearby mountainside that was similar to the one where they had been ambushed and Thundercracker nearly killed.

Erica peered at the aircraft through small binoculars as it came out of the pass and slowed to a stop. It was an olive drab UH-1, popularly known as a Huey. There were large machine guns mounted on it. She looked more closely and got a good view of General Sherrod looking back at them through larger binoculars.

"The Autobots were going to turn me over to those guys," Erica said. "They're feds or Army or something,"

"No doubt that would have been most unpleasant,"

"Yeah,"

The gunner aboard the craft got a little overeager and unleashed a stream of bullets that came nowhere near the target and harmlessly ricocheted off the some rocks.

"And it would seem they are now intent on your destruction,"

"And yours too I'd say, but they don't have a chance,"

"No, they do not. Someone that stupid doesn't deserve to live. Would you like the honor of destroying them?"

Not killing some dumbass, gullible kids was one thing, but this was worlds apart. Those other guys wanted her locked up for good in some shit hole prison, either that or dead. She made her decision, and turned the figurative corner for good.

"Yes, I believe I would, but they're going to have to get closer. This thing doesn't have the range to get them where they are now," she replied gesturing at the laser on her arm.

"We don't need to wait. Observe."

The white and silver mech leaped gracefully upward and twisted and bent and.…Shrank? Erica was watching this with her mouth hanging open in amazement. Until then she had no idea what his alt form was. And how could he possibly reduce so much? It defied everything she knew and was so difficult to grasp even as it happened right in front of her that she felt a little disoriented for a second or two. As the process was completed he began to come down right to her. Shit. She had better not miss. And she didn't.

"How did you do that? The shrinking, I mean,"

"I will explain it later," he replied, knowing that it was highly unlikely that she would be able to comprehend the process of displacing most of his body mass into interdimensional space. "Presently we have more urgent matters to attend to,"

"Right."

The transformation had caused the helicopter, which had drifted closer, to totally slip her mind. Megatron had become a perfectly weighted and balanced handgun approximating a Walther in design. The fusion cannon was now a sight with red, glowing crosshairs in the center. Erica aimed at the chopper with her arms extended but slightly bent, the left hand supporting the injured right, just like she had been taught, which brought back an old memory that crossed her mind in only a couple of seconds. One summer when an infestation of marauding groundhogs was making a mess of the vegetable garden, her father decided this required retaliation. Erica had learned some of the finer points of firing a weapon (with her dad they were always 'weapons' and never 'guns') in addition to saving the tomatoes, which were her favorite. However, the groundhogs could have eaten all the eggplants as far as she was concerned. It felt like that had happened a couple of lifetimes ago and to someone else.

The crosshairs began to blink rapidly. She held her breath and slowly squeezed the trigger, an action that resulted in an earth shattering 'BA-WHOOM!' and an enormous, blazing bolt of plasma, both things being far beyond what was expected. The recoil was violent enough that her elbow and shoulder joints would ache off and on for the next two days. The chopper didn't explode. It was vaporized. The main rotor and the tail section were not hit and those items spun away before colliding with a nearby rock face and then falling to the ground.

"Damn!"

Skywarp was glad to see that she wasn't shocked by the result in the sense that five humans were now gone from existence, but instead in how effectively they were eliminated. He knew there would be no sulking over this. While the Autobots' human looked on in horror, _their _human looked ready to do it again as soon as the chance was there. It was a proud moment.

Erica felt the living weapon twitch in her hand. What did she do now?

"Very good. Now release me," Megatron said.

Release him? How? Anytime she had seen one of them transform it usually involved leaping up first, so she tossed the gun into the air to what she hoped was a suitable height. The reverse of the process was no less baffling to watch.

The shot at the chopper had drained more power than the mech really wanted to part with. They needed to go, and soon.

The Autobots were at a total loss. They could not fire upon the Decepticons because of Spike. They had underestimated the enemy and now a terrible price was being paid. It was an unmitigated disaster. They had tried to warn the humans to leave the matter to them. They should have tried harder.

"I think it's time to take our leave,"

"What should we do with our guest?" Starscream asked, for once not arguing. He'd had enough abuse for a while.

"He makes a very good shield, but I don't think we really need him any longer" Megatron said as he plucked the boy from the ground.

Erica watched this exchange and wondered what they would do. Spike was struggling futilely. You had to admit, that boy wasn't a quitter. If it were up to her, she'd let him live, but it wasn't. What the hell? Megatron had been right about everything else, let him decide the kid's fate.

"And what do you do with something you don't need?" The mech asked the boy rhetorically before answering his own question, "Why you throw it away of course," And then as his friends watched in disbelief, Spike was thrown off the top of the hill like the ball in a slow pitch softball game.

Sunstreaker did not hesitate, transforming and accelerating to the spot where his computations told him Spike would land. He made it with no time to spare, switching back to his robot mode and jumping upward to snatch the human from the air.

As soon as the catch was made, a staggering barrage of laserfire was unleashed upon the departing Decepticons but it was too late for it to be very effective.

"That was a nice shot," Skywarp said, as he flew past the few scraps that remained of the chopper.

"Thanks, but I'm not sure how much of that was me, you know?" Erica replied.

"It was mostly you, I think. If Megatron had been helping much, there would have been nothing left at all,"

"That's probably true,"

"You're not going to get all glitched up over this, right?

"No, I don't think so,"

"Good. Do you think the other humans will learn from this and back off?"

"No way. We probably just pissed them off and now they'll try that much harder,"

"Let them. We will destroy them just like the others,"

This would prove to be much harder to achieve than they thought.


	17. Chapter 17

Author's note: And here we are again. It's getting close to the end, believe it or not. There's maybe two chapters at the most left then something else happens, but I'll give you all that with the last chapter. Thanks for all the nice remarks. I really am glad people are liking this. As always, Transformers belongs to Hasbro, Takara and others.

xxxxxx

Come Around  
By: Quetzal

Chapter 17  
A Bolt From the Blue

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Years passed. More and more the militaries of various countries became involved until it was almost one giant force now. The collection of energy became a difficult achievement that required far more planning and creativity than ever before. Things for Erica didn't change much. She continued her medical work, but conversely, ended several more lives. It was not done indiscriminately. Other humans really got on her nerves but she tried as hard as possible to avoid killing either through skillful execution of a plan or stealth, but sometimes it could not be helped. It was the nature of war, just like she'd been told.

The Decepticon's numbers had grown. Now there were Stunticons and Combaticons rounding out the ranks. In addition, Davis-Monthan received another clandestine visit and provided a group of F-4 Phantoms that had been converted. They could function well enough to follow orders but they lacked true independent personalities. Among the others they were called the 'Zombie Squadron' and would be cannon fodder if things got bad enough. There was one among them that seemed to have a little more individuality than the others and he was always silently hanging around. Erica called him Shadow, though his official designation was seven-five which was a number painted on the tail section. If he were to survive long enough to see the Decepticons' ownership of Cybertron, it might be possible to get him a personality. The way things were looking, however, suggested the odds were against him.

The group dynamic wasn't changed so much. The new additions tended to hang around in their own little groups. Surprisingly, the Combaticons weren't that much trouble. Being essentially a reincarnated version of some renegade 'bots who had been destroyed and their personality components locked up in storage, they mostly minded their p's and q's around the base. They knew full well that if Megatron did it to them once, he would do it again. Stunticons were a very different matter. They were belligerent and had little regard for the command structure. And even less for humans.

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"Ow! Watch what you're doing back there!" Wildrider snapped.

"I am. How the hell did you manage to bend this axle, anyway?" Erica asked.

The Stunticons did not stay around the base much until one of them was injured or unless summoned by Megatron. They had not even existed for all that long compared to most of the others. They were created from Earth vehicles and in their alt mode they complied fairly well with existing maintenance guides. Wildrider was on a lift and had an entire wheel and brake assembly removed. He didn't like it and having a human messing with it didn't improve his disposition. And the human wasn't crazy about his being there either. Having to repair damage caused by dumbassery (and with a Stunticon that was almost always the cause) rather than from something legitimate like a mission annoyed her. This was time that could be better spent some other way.

"If you must know, Dragstrip bet that I couldn't make the jump across a section of freeway overpass that wasn't finished,"

"Did you make it?"

"Of course,"

_And now here we are. Idiot._ The majority of these new mechs had some serious personality flaws. She wasn't the only one to see this. It was suspected that the problem had something to do with the fact that they were created mainly from earth vehicles rather than being Cybertronian and just disguised. But hey, they needed to increase their numbers and it seemed the best way.

"Why is this taking so long?" An angry voice demanded. It was Motormaster, and as usual he seemed pissed.

"It's not my fault," said Wildrider, nervously.

"Hey, I'm working as fast as I can," Oddly, she wasn't really that scared of him, but the other Stunticons feared and despised their commander.

"It's not fast enough," he said looming closer.

"It'll have to be. Your boys haven't come back with the parts yet," Dead End and Breakdown had been sent to find either the part or another Ferrari to take it from. Who knew what kind of mischief they had gotten into in the process?

"I don't care for your attitude, flesh creature,"

"My name isn't 'flesh creature',"

"You would be wise to show some respect," the mech said, leaning over her.

"Geez, what's your problem, Motormaster?" Asked a new voice. It was Rumble who was carrying the replacement axle over one shoulder like a kid going fishing.

"Mind your own business, microglitch,"

"Frag off, ya big jerk. I don't take orders from nobody but Soundwave and Megatron and _she_ doesn't have to listen to nobody but the boss," He said gesturing toward Erica who had begun to move away. Rumble was small but he had been known to attack mechs that were ten times his size. It was sort of sweet that he'd stand up for her, but at the same time he did like to pick fights.

"Yeah? Well the boss isn't here,"

For a few seconds it looked like they were about to square off and then the larger mech's communicator activated. The other Stunticons needed him for something. Motormaster said nothing but gave Erica a look that suggested the discussion wasn't over.

"I hate that guy," Rumble said, placing the axle on the floor.

"That's my team leader you're talking about," said Wildrider.

"So what? Everyone knows none of you guys are in love with him, either."

Erica went on with the job. It was pretty much business as usual around there. If not for the cliques and infighting and jealousies, they probably could have won their war a long time ago.

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"Are you sure you're not cheatin'?" Frenzy asked with a suspicious glance as his twin raked the large stack of poker chips into the ever growing pile in front of him,"

"I don't have to cheat, I got talent," said Rumble.

Erica had taught them how to play poker and they took to it like a pair of degenerate gamblers. "Talent, luck or something else. Either way, I'm done. You two can fight it out and let me know what happens." She said, climbing her way down from the outsized chair to the floor. "Goodnight gentlemen."

"Goodnight," they said in chorus before resuming what was probably going to be an argument before it was over.

In general it had been a pretty good day. She had gotten Wildrider fixed up (his response being 'took you long enough' rather than 'thanks' or nothing at all.) Another of the old drones was closer to being restored. Having a few of them going would be a time saver since she could send them after tools or parts from storage instead of getting them herself. There had been time for weapon practice and more physical training, dinner and then a little poker with Rumble and Frenzy. There wasn't much chance of beating them. With computer processors for brains, they could easily calculate odds and chances of what card was where and play accordingly. It was still fun though.

Megatron, all of the seekers and the Constructicons and a few Combaticons were off doing something that had to do (as usual) with energon. Soundwave was in charge. Until the Stunticons showed up, it had been just him, his cassettes, Erica and the "zombies". She would have to stop calling them that. It seemed kind of mean.

As she got closer to her quarters, the halls got darker. What was up? Was there a breaker or its equivalent popped somewhere? Wonderful. There wasn't anything essential down here aside from her fridge and she was pretty sure the power converter was connected into the main line so it ought to be working. She would check when she got into her room and if it was ok it could wait until tomorrow.

The darkness finally got intense enough to require a flashlight. The little Mag-lite lit a narrow area in the immense hallway. It was creepy, that was for sure. And it was gradually having more and more of a sense of not being right. _Oh, knock it off. What are you, six? _But she couldn't shake the feeling. As she directed the beam of the light further ahead, it was suddenly reflected back from a chromed surface. It was Motormaster, sitting there in the dark in his alt mode. He said nothing and then the diesel engine rumbled to life and revved up and then backed off over and over. She was not close enough to her room to make an escape there.

"I guess you're still pissed at me, huh?" She asked. The hiss of air brakes releasing was the only response. Uh oh. Time to play the card she avoided on any other occasion. "You know that Megatron will be very unhappy if something happens to me. And he'll know who was responsible," The engine revving stopped. Was he reconsidering? These guys were not right and maybe they were too crazy to worry about consequences. The vehicle began to roll toward her with surprising speed moving through the gears faster than was possible with a normal truck.

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Erica really made him work for it, but eventually Motormaster got her cornered. There were parts of the ship she hadn't explored, and in the dark it was next to impossible to find her way around. The last mistake was going down a hall that ended abruptly with no outlet. The 'bot transformed and closed in.

"Now what will you do? There's no one here to save you," he said, illuminated by only the small flashlight. Before there was a chance for her to answer, the woman saw two arms suddenly materialize out from the darkness, one of which was holding an evil looking blade. Motormaster took her expression as simply fear of him. He discovered the truth when a hand snaked beneath his arm and then slid up to rest on the back of his neck and a bladed weapon of some kind was jabbed against the side of his head waiting to pierce the space between a couple of armored plates and end his functioning permanently.

They stood there together saying nothing. Erica moved to the side and got a better look. This wasn't Soundwave. Which left only….. "Shadow, is that you?"

"Yes," came the reply of a very rusty voice. He sort of sounded like a higher pitched Megatron with a case of laryngitis and poor enunciation.

"Shadow?" Motormaster asked, thoroughly baffled and then he realized who (or what) had grabbed him. It was one of those slaggin' zombie seeker things!

"Let me go this minute, you freak," he demanded, all the while squirming to get loose.

"Quiet!" And then the blade was pressing into the gap between the armor plates.

"Hey listen, you don't have to kill him," Erica said, "He was just screwin' around,"

"No. He was serious."

"Nah, I'd be dead now, if he'd been serious. Right?" She said looking at Motormaster.

_C'mon dumbass, work with me._

"Uh yeah, we were just…playing,"

"See? Let him go, it's ok."

After a brief pause, Shadow released his hold.

"How dare you, you soulless piece of scrap!" Motormaster raged and then moved toward the other mech in an aggressive stance. The tip of the blade was suddenly at his throat. Soulless or not, he was very, very fast. The Stunticon was finally forced to leave and take out his anger on someone else.

His job completed, Shadow moved to one side and waited for the human to start walking. He fell in behind her, even activating an exposed landing light to aid navigation.

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"If I were you, I wouldn't admit that to anyone," Megatron said, clearly finding the information amusing.

"That's all you have to say?" Motormaster growled. He had ranted on for several minutes about the offence committed by that piece of leftover garbage that the putrid little human called Shadow. Those things were not worthy of names, either of them.

"And this attack was totally without provocation, eh?" The white and silver mech asked slyly.

Too late Motormaster realized he was about to be caught in a lie. He had his story and was sticking to it. "Yes,"

"So you must be speaking of some _other_ attack and not this?" The large monitor popped on and began to run video of his pursuit of the human vermin the night before. "Because what I see happening is what is supposed to happen. I personally programmed those mechanisms. That particular one was assigned the task of assuring the human's survival in my absence,"

The Stunticon had nothing to say. He looked surprised and angry.

"I despise liars, Motormaster. Now get out of my sight," It was always something. The minute his back was turned one of his soldiers would engage in some kind of treachery or foolishness. The trick was knowing which one. He didn't have the time to devote to such nonsense so he programmed the most intelligent seeming of the non-seeker aircraft to keep an eye on the human and the rest were to watch over everything else and report anything that appeared out of line when they were not otherwise occupied.

This latest outing resulted in quite a large amount of energon being gathered and shipped off via space bridge before they had to retreat. It looked like they were always failing but in fact, the energon reserves on Cybertron were growing steadily. The power multiplying link had been duplicated and its clone sent to Shockwave for further use. They were getting very close to their goal. What he needed was a way to get large amounts of power quickly. One more success like the last one would be all it took. But how? What was out there on this pathetic planet that they could exploit without attracting attention?

He tapped a few buttons on the console in front of him activating cameras that had been secreted in various locations on the surface. Refineries were out, as were hydroelectric plants. The sun or the planet's core was not an option as he had tried those before with limited success. Besides, nothing says 'Here we are, come and blast us,' like a solar needle.

There was a quiet beep that signaled an incoming Decepticon aircraft. It must be Skywarp. Megatron activated the tower control and then switched on a camera that was mounted to the top. All was blackness. There were no stars or moon. Another readout indicated the various parameters of temperature, wind speed and the like. He looked back up at the main view screen in time to see a huge lightning bolt rend the blackness apart for a few seconds.

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"Are you serious?" Skywarp asked sounding alternately amazed and then troubled.

"Of course I'm serious. You should have seen the look on his face," Erica said, after giving her friend a play by play of events between Shadow and Motormaster. They were on their way back from another shopping trip.

"I can't stand that creep but I don't know as you should be hanging around with those…things either. Or giving them names," If only Megatron had let her get a dog like she'd wanted to a couple years ago, she wouldn't be trying to make a pet of something that was little more than a drone.

"What are you worried about? That _thing_ saved my hide," Why did everyone think that the F-4s were just empty shells? It was obvious to anyone who spent a little time trying to get to know them, that something more was going on.

"This time, but what about the next? They aren't totally predictable, you know," Skywarp lectured.

"Geez, you almost sound jealous or something,"

"I am not jealous,"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes," but it didn't sound totally convincing.

"Aw, 'Warp, you know you're my favorite," she said, fully aware that expressing such things kind of embarrassed him. He didn't like big displays of emotion. "Oh, I almost forgot, I grabbed a little something for you," she said, suddenly digging around in a pocket on her jacket.

"You did?"

"It's nothing special, just a good luck piece,"

"What's that?"

"You know, an object that brings good luck. It's just a superstition."

"And do you believe this?"

"Eh. Sometimes. I had this one shirt that I wore whenever I had a big test in college. Of course I also studied my ass off, but you never know what might be the little thing that puts you over the top. Ah, here it is," she said pulling her hand from a pocket and revealing a little four leaf clover covered in diamonds dangling from a bracelet length chain made of large silver links. "Considering how dangerous it is out there now, I thought you could use any help you could get."

"What do I do with it?"

"You don't do anything besides keep it. Here..." she said leaning forward and wrapping the chain around a t-handle that protruded near the bottom edge of the instrument panel.

"Now what?"

"Maybe nothing."

"It's a strange custom, but thank you, I guess," he said.

"You're welcome," she said.

They were almost back to the base, when a big violet bolt of lightning flashed seemingly right on top of them.

"Slag!" Skywarp yelped and wobbled unsteadily.

"Are you okay?" Erica asked as she rubbed her eyes trying to clear the bothersome afterimage.

"I think so. It just missed us,"

"See? It's working already," she said, gesturing at the clover that was gently swinging to and fro.

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Swindle was waiting for them when they got inside and back down to the main level.

"Megatron wants to see the both of you right now,"

"What about?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask." If there was nothing to gain for himself, Swindle wasn't much help with anything.

They hurriedly went to the command center where their leader was looking at the main screen that flickered with images of more lightning.

"You summoned us?" Skywarp said, uncertainly. Were they in trouble for something?

"Yes. Were you near any of this lightning tonight?" Megatron asked without turning from the screen.

"Actually, I was almost hit by it a few minutes ago,"

"Excellent. Go to the repair bay and download all the sensor information you have on it,"

The seeker looked at his human cohort and shrugged before going off to carry out the order.

Erica didn't like waiting around but wasn't sure if she should say anything or not. She finally decided to take the initiative.

"You require something of me as well, Mighty One?" He turned and looked at her, optics ablaze and that smirky, pleased expression present. What was he up to now?

"Why yes," he replied, "I wish to discuss the weather,"


	18. Chapter 18

Author's note: The next chapter (19) will be the last for this story, but then something else happens as I'll explain then, so make sure to read the note at the beginning. The Atlas missile program was a real thing and abandoned bases still exist. There's a bunch of websites about them if you're interested. Transformers belong to Hasbro and Takara and probably others I don't know about.

xxxxxxx

Come Around  
By: Quetzal

Chapter 18  
Nobody's Child

xxxxxxx

Initially it was dark and damp and treacherous, but the Constructicons had things whipped into shape in no time. They had gutted the interior of the structure and rigged it for power to run the computers and communications equipment and had also added a secret entrance/escape route.

A hidden temporary headquarters had been required in order to direct what would be, if things went as projected, the final push to collect energon. Research had uncovered the Atlas missile program from the 1960's and the many abandoned bases that remained after the program was discontinued. At night Laserbeak and Buzzsaw had gone out and surveyed the areas around all the known sites. Some of the old underground silos had been sold and converted to homes and some had been destroyed. There were many remaining that were abandoned, but had deteriorated too far to be useful or were in too populous an area. This one in an empty part of South Dakota would be the main HQ and there were three others in remote locations in Kansas, Iowa and north Texas in good enough condition to hide space bridges.

Ever efficient, only the parts of the silos they needed were fixed up. That left the rest perfect for exploring.

"Okay, I'm ready to come out of here," Erica said into the tiny communicator while she snapped cable connectors to a climbing harness.

"Going up." Frenzy replied, and the cable became taut and slowly pulled the human up toward the surface.

After all the time in the dark with just a flashlight, the new overhead lights were blinding.

"What did you find?" Swindle asked as Erica emerged from a hole in the floor that led far underground. The stairs going down had rusted and crumbled long ago. He was in alt mode so that they could use his winch for climbing.

"Nothing. Sorry,"

The Combaticon was hoping for something useful to bargain with. Just who he was bargaining with and for what, no one knew but you could bet they were getting ripped off.

"There's something on your leg, there," Frenzy pointed out.

This was the third section of the silo she had explored so Erica was expecting some sort of crud instead of the large-ish fuzzy spider sprawled out on the side of her leg just above the knee. She felt very lightheaded for a few seconds. Fighting the urge to dance around like an idiot she reached down and swatted it to the ground and then stomped it, doing a pretty good job at hiding her disgust when she felt the boneless body squash beneath her boot. It was out of the question to let these guys see fear of something so ridiculous.

"You gonna eat that?" Rumble asked with interest.

"No, those things aren't meaty enough to bother with," It was easier to lie than explain the difference. She was just too tired. The last few weeks had been very busy.

The idea was so simple. Why hadn't they come up with it sooner? They were going to harvest the power of lightning into a special capacitor and then drain it and convert the electricity into energon. Megatron had assigned Erica to research storms and lightning, and the two of them, with Starscream and Onslaught, had devised a strategy.

There would be three teams with two parts. The first part would be comprised of Stunticons, Combaticons or Constructicons. They would transport the apparatus and collect the lightning's energy. Both halves would convert it to energon. Then the other half of the team which would consist one of each of the two seeker groups and a 'zombie' would take the energon to the nearest space bridge where another of the F-4s waited to ferry it to Cybertron. Anyone who was not assigned to a team would be guarding the space bridges and providing assistance and reinforcement should there be a concentrated attack. The bridges would be remotely activated from HQ. The renovations were being carried out on the other sites and duplicate bridges were being made. If the rest of the plan went as smoothly as the test of the capacitors and rockets they would see victory sooner than anyone thought.

The others were getting a little excited at the idea of going home. Starscream was almost pleasant, Longhaul didn't bitch as much, and Thundercracker had begun to remind the engineer of a kid anticipating Christmas.

"You'll love it," he said, describing home. "All the metal and towers and everything,"

Erica had been preparing for the move for some time. Living on Cybertron would necessitate becoming a vegetarian. She had been devoting a lot of study to the concept. She wouldn't be able to keep animals and knew nothing about butchering anyway. However she did know about home canning, so she had been experimenting with hydroponics and grow lights. If marijuana could be cultivated indoors with no exposure to sunlight, so could anything else, she reasoned. The bulk of the closet where she roomed looked like a vast greenhouse. Megatron had assured her space could be allotted for a proper garden once they got back to Cybertron, perhaps on a rooftop or something. She'd be munching on a whole lot of freeze-dried and canned stuff until the plants matured, though.

This was not like moving from Illinois to California, that was for sure. Perhaps there would be an occasional visit to Earth, but it would be damn seldom if it ever happened at all. There would be no other humans. It was hard to get one's mind around the concept of abandoning a whole planet and being the only one of your species. It just led to more and more questions. What would she do there? Would other, as of yet unknown Decepticons tolerate her presence or be hostile? Could she come and go freely? And from where? Would the friends she did have forget about her when they got home and could go about their lives? What did those lives consist of? They had been at war so long, how would they deal with peace? What would Megatron do with no one to fight? She could not imagine him just dealing with the day to day minutiae of running a society.

She pondered the idea further as she left the others and went off to have dinner and then get some rest. There were storms predicted up and down the area known as Tornado Alley for the next day. They would all be very busy.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The first day yielded a large amount of energon and no casualties and most importantly, no sign of any Autobots or military. It was a success in every way. But of course this being a Decepticon undertaking, things would eventually hit snags of their own making later.

"Stupid Stunticons," Skywarp grumbled. "Next time we get the Constructicons or Combaticons, I don't care which. I'd even rather have a gang of those zombies,"

"Yeah, let Starscream deal with them," Erica agreed.

For whatever reason, someone had entrusted Wildrider and Breakdown with the rockets that day. These were a crucial part of the operation. Each of the model rockets had a spool of copper wire attached. One end was connected to the capacitor and the rest served as an antenna to attract the lightning and direct it to the storage capacitor when the rocket was launched. Scavenger had created a device that monitored the buildup of a positive charge at ground level, which signaled when the wire antenna would be the likeliest to attract lightning. A week into the mission when the team met at the appointed area in the middle of a cornfield somewhere in Wisconsin for that day's attempt, the two Stunticons had wrecked half the supply and used the rest to shoot at each other on the way there. The sky off to the southwest was beginning to take on a gloomy gray cast indicating the storms that had been predicted for the area were starting to materialize. Motormaster threatened to rip out their axles if they did anything like that again, but that did nothing for the present predicament. It was too late to get any more from the stash they had at the temporary HQ.

"Let's go," Erica had said to Skywarp "I have an idea,"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And now they were on the way back from having raided a fireworks warehouse in Missouri. It was Sunday evening and the store had been closed by the time they arrived. Skywarp was carrying all manner of big, missile style fireworks and flying as fast as he could without detriment to his passenger. It would look odd but it should work, although launching would be a little more dangerous unless they managed to rig some sort of remote like the other rockets had, plus the wire still had to be attached.

"How did you know to go there?" Skywarp asked.

"Some years on the Fourth of July we'd go there and get fireworks. None of the good stuff is legal in Illinois,"

"Why that date?"

"Independence Day. Don't you guys have any holidays at all?"

"Nope," It seemed that humans were always looking for days away from appointed tasks. Christmas, New Years Day, Thanksgiving and now this. "And why do you celebrate this holiday with small explosions?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's symbolic of the Revolution…you know, the rocket's red glare, et cetera,"

"That makes sense but why also at midnight on the last night of the calendar year?"

"Beats me. It's fun though,"

The sky was getting that steely gray cast the further north they went. It looked like they would get back in time for the storms. They were still over Illinois when Erica spotted something. It was a water tower painted to resemble an apple and it sat beside a lake.

"Can you turn to the right just a little?" She asked.

"That'll put us off course,"

"I know, but it's really important," She didn't tell him that she recognized the landscape below as that of her hometown. If she was going to leave Earth maybe forever, there was something that had to be done. Megatron would never have to know about it either. In a few short moments she saw what she was looking for.

"Land here, quick, but don't hit anything,"

"Land? Why?"

"C'mon, just do it and I'll explain when we get down,"

Against his better judgment, the seeker complied. What was she so excited about? Erica was ejected out and then caught as they came down in an empty space beside a barn.

"What is the big deal?" He asked as he placed the human on the ground.

"This," she said with a sweep of the arm, "is my home. I lived here until I went to California,"

"This place? It looks kind of run down,"

It was pretty rude of him to say so but he did have a point. What was going on? The barn, which in the past had looked almost new all the time, was covered in faded and peeling paint and the roof needed repair. Two cows stood in a weedy lot where once there was a whole herd as well as a horse. The goats were gone and the lot where the hogs were kept was empty and full of tall weeds. The house needed paint too but was in much better shape than anything else. The flower beds surrounding it looked immaculate.

"I don't get it. It never used to look like this," she said taking a few steps toward the house.

"Where are you going? We have to get back,"

"I know, but this is the last chance I'll have to see my family, 'Warp. They probably think I'm dead,"

"Are you sure that isn't better than just showing up after all this time?"

"I'll let you know," she said, walking toward the house.

"Megatron will shoot us both if he finds out,"

"So don't tell him,"

Something near one of the giant oak trees caught her eye. It was a small wooden cross. Skywarp saw her change course and followed and then he heard a quiet, minor swear.

"Shit,"

"What?"

The cross looked like it had been there a while and there was a word carved into the horizontal section: Smokey.

"What does it mean?"

"Smokey was the dog we had when I lived here. This must be his grave. He liked to nap under this tree. He was pretty old then, so I don't know why I'm so surprised,"

"Oh," the mech replied. Were some sorts of condolences in order here? He just wasn't sure so he remained quiet.

"Well anyway, wait here, I'll be back,"

xxxxxxxx

The front door was open and the screen wasn't latched, just like always. Erica hesitantly pulled it open.

"Hello? Is anybody home?" She called. Maybe her parents had moved. That would explain why it all looked so run down. Stepping into the living room proved that was not the case. It had the same old floral pattern furniture and the same wallpaper, but at some point the carpet had been replaced. The mantel over the fireplace had the same wooden framed portraits, but some new ones had been added also. And there was something else. She walked over to investigate further. The triangular case had a glass front and inside was an American flag. Beside the flag was a portrait of a handsome young man in a U.S. Army uniform. To the right of the portrait was another small case that held two medals. One was a Purple Heart and the other was a Silver Star. She reached out and gently touched the medals. There was something so familiar about the young man. He looked to be in his late teens or early twenties maybe. And as the realization began to dawn on her, there was a loud ch-CHACK and then a shotgun barrel was pressing into the base of her skull.

"Get your hands up!" Came the gruff command. Erica complied. The pressure of the gun barrel eased off.

"Turn around slow,"

The woman did as she was told and discovered an older, gray haired gent with murder in his eyes and the shotgun pointed at her midsection. For a moment she didn't recognize him and then that feeling of disoriented unreality came over her.

"Dad?"

The old guy looked as dazed as she felt. "Erica Jane? But they told us…"

"They told you wrong,"

"Oh my God," he said quietly before yelling back over his shoulder, "Diane, get up here quick, you won't believe it!"

There were hurried steps on the stairs leading to the cellar and then a face very much like Erica's own might look in several years was peering cautiously around the corner.

"Hi Mom," Erica said for lack of something better. She had time to observe that her mother was holding an old revolver. She must have been scared half to death to do that, because she hated guns. The older woman rushed forward and hugged her daughter.

"Where have you been all this time?" Johnny Dawes asked looking at her with disbelief.

"It's a very long story,"

The three of them stood there just looking at one another, each side amazed at the changes in the other. Her parents looked so…old compared to when she saw them last. Had it really been that long?

"What happened around here?" Erica asked. "Where's all animals and stuff?"

"That's the government for you. We sold off most of the animals and some of the equipment to pay the taxes they keep raising to pay for this war,"

"It's gotten that bad?"

"A lot of people have it worse than us. Half the businesses in town and several farms have gone under. And besides, I'm getting too old to keep up with all that,"

"Unbelievable," and then she noticed her mother wasn't saying anything. "What's wrong, Mom?"

"I wish your brother could have been here…" Diane said as tears welled up in her eyes before she hurriedly brushed them away. "He never really got over your disappearing, you know."

"That's Tom, isn't it?" Erica asked, gesturing at the photo of the soldier.

"Yeah. He was 101st Airborne," Johnny said with obvious pride and sadness.

"What happened? How did he end up in the army?" Tom had been a very peaceable boy. He was interested in sports, particularly football, and had a way with animals. He had always thought he might like to be a veterinarian. Erica could remember him sitting in the barn for hours trying to make nice with the feral cats that slunk in and out of the building. It was hard to imagine him jumping out of airplanes and running around with a gun.

"It was the draft of course. There weren't any deferments for college kids this time around," Diane replied.

"Was it an accident?" She could easily imagine something like a failed parachute or a plane crash, but accidents didn't earn one medals.

"No he died fighting those goddamned machines," Johnny said bitterly. "His company was attacked and he managed to get four of the wounded back to where it was safe before they got him. They ought to get all of those things in one spot and nuke 'em, and I mean all of them,"

"But that's been a few years ago. Where were you all this time?" Diane asked. "The FBI said you were probably dead."

How was she going to explain this? In the end the problem was solved for her, though not in the best way. There suddenly came a ferocious cacophony of barking in the yard. Three mongrel dogs of various sizes were thoroughly freaking out about something. Erica had a pretty good idea of what it was.

"Eh, that bunch of mutts. I keep running them off and they keep hanging around," Johnny said.

"Maybe if somebody would stop feeding them table scraps," Diane said.

The dogs saw the humans step out into the yard so they ran to them in an odd crunched up posture with their tails between their legs, but still barking.

"For crying out loud will you…." Johnny started to yell at the animals but then didn't bother to finish the sentence when he finally saw the source of their fear.

Skywarp was standing there with a large, dead tree limb in one hand and a perplexed expression. His attempt to get these stupid things to play fetch was a miserable failure. Why did humans think dogs were so smart?

"Mom…Dad… this is Skywarp," Erica said carefully. "He's my friend,"

"This? This is what you've been doing for all that time?" Diane said, sounding so disgusted and disappointed that her offspring wished that she had hit her or something instead.

"You don't understand,"

"No I don't. Your own brother _died_ trying to fight these… things and you've been helping them?"

"I didn't plan it. It just happened,"

"Erica…" Skywarp said, gesturing with the branch before dropping it. Her father had pointed the shotgun at the mech and was going to fire.

"Dad! Don't shoot him. He won't hurt you and you won't hurt him with that thing either, you'll just piss him off,"

"Shut up! I ought to shoot you instead,"

"How can you say that?"

"These filthy sons of bitches killed your brother and a whole lot of other boys and you tell me they're your friends?"

"I didn't know about Tom, and you don't know it was Decepticons that killed him,"

"What difference does it make? They're all the same. They should all be cut up into scraps,"

"No, they're not all the same!" Any time she spoke to another human this argument came up. Why even try to explain?

For the second time that day Erica found the shotgun pointed at her. Skywarp immediately aimed a laser at the other human. Weren't creators supposed to love their offspring? These were openly hostile. What a confusing mess. He had no idea if he was the result of spark-bonding or Vector Sigma, and that was fine. It was far better than dealing with something like this.

"No, 'Warp, don't do it. He's not gonna shoot me,"

After a few tense moments, the gun was pointed at the ground and Erica could see that her father's eyes had taken on that sparkly look that indicated tears.

"Dad, I…" But she didn't get to finish as the man raised his hand to silence her.

"Just go, Erica. Go and don't ever come back," he said in a choked sounding voice.

"Wait…," she started to protest, but her parents had both turned their backs on her and were walking back to the house. Her mother turned and looked like she was about to say something else but then didn't.

The mech was appalled. These flesh creatures would discard her so easily over things that she had no part in? As a Decepticon one would take some kind of punishment for a mistake and that would be the end of it. She was better off among his kind than with her own. He would liked to have said so, but wasn't sure how without it sounding wrong.

"We'd better get going," he said instead.

"Yeah, we don't want to have to explain this,"

Once in the air again, Skywarp considered the events further and was disgusted all over again.

"Would you like to go back and blast something?" He asked.

"No," she said quietly.

"Strafe the yard, at the very least?"

"No. I'll just do what they ask and never go back. But fuck it, right? We're going to Cybertron anyway." She said trying unsuccessfully to be indifferent for his benefit.

She said nothing further but he could see enormous amounts of condensation or something collecting in her optics and then running out. The Decepticon was stunned. Here sat a human that once insulted several of the mightiest of the Autobots in their own headquarters. She had told his Air Commander to get bent and also electrocuted him. She had killed several of her own kind. And to top it all, she had said to Megatron, the great and terrible slag-maker himself, 'screw you' and here she was being made to cry over the rejection of a couple of unreasonable, know-nothing humans. Maybe he'd go back and blast them on his own later. He hated the situation and wanted to cheer her up somehow. He thought of and then decided against several options before finally resorting to the one thing he had told her to give up on because it wasn't ever going to happen.

"Hey,"

"What?" she replied, wiping at her eyes with the back of one hand.

"Wanna drive?"


	19. Chapter 19

**READ THIS FIRST!** Yes it's another author's note but it's important. We're at the end. Sort of. When you get to the divider that looks like XooXooXooXooX, you can stop and let that be the end if you want. Otherwise, you can keep going and get the set up for the next story called "A Blessing And A Curse" that will get going in January or early February. That one is going to be a sort of Rip Van Winkle-y thing that ties in with "No Easy Answers" where I'll take a stab at something else that's been done. And since a whole bunch of years were skipped in this one, I might do some little one shot stories about things that happened then. Anyway, I'm glad so many of you really enjoyed this. Thank you for all the nice comments. It was fun. Transformers belong to Hasbro and Takara, but I wish they'd give me a cut of the take.

Come Around  
By: Quetzal1

Chapter 19  
End of the Line

xxxxxxx

Things were going well. In fact, better than anyone had dared to hope. In a few more days they would have enough energon to leave this insignificant rock of a planet forever. Megatron was feeling pretty good about the situation, but he would leave nothing to chance of course. The mech was sitting outside leaning against the remains of the rusty shed that stood near the silo doors. A bunch of his troops in high spirits and together in a relatively small area necessitated some time away from them. The night was very cool and the sky was clear and loaded with stars. If you looked up and nowhere else, this could be anywhere. A light breeze was rustling the tall grass surrounding the area. After all this time, victory was within his grasp. Cybertron would be theirs and once everything was in order there, conquest of the universe would be next. He had waited and struggled for so long to get to this point. Sometimes in low moments it had seemed like too much to even dream of. His reverie was interrupted by the sound of dirt and gravel crunching beneath light steps.

Erica needed some time away from the others. This temporary base didn't provide for solitude whenever you wanted it like the main one. Dirge and Starscream had elected to ignore the warning signs of an impending tornado that day and had gone on a little ride as a result. They were lucky to get away fairly unscathed. It did make for a good story though. The problem was, she'd already heard it and some of the others who hadn't did not really believe it and so excessively noisy arguments were breaking out. The quiet outside was amazing after all that racket. After her eyes adjusted, the stars looked so close and provided enough light that she could see obstacles and avoid them. Did the night look the same on any planet? Very soon she would be looking at alien constellations. There was a sandy place on the far side of the long shed that would be a comfortable spot to sit for a little while. She rounded the corner and was startled to find something already sitting there. Out of reflex she went into a crouch and aimed the laser on her forearm before recognizing the familiar crimson optics glowing in the darkness.

"Stand down," came the gravelly command from the black.

"Forgive me, Lord Megatron. I didn't know anyone else was out here," she said, getting to her feet and bowing. Best to be _real _polite when you've just drawn your weapon on the boss, especially since it had been upgraded to cause damage to about anything.

"You are forgiven. Why are you out here?"

"I needed some quiet. The others are a little wound up tonight."

"Agreed."

"May I join you?"

"Certainly." He placed a hand on the ground and then brought it around to rest against his midsection after his pet had climbed aboard. She leaned back against the thick armor plate between a couple of vents. It felt like he had been out in the sun but the silent cooling fans were providing the warmth as they pulled heat away from internal systems and released it to the outside. She had intended to just plunk down on the soft ground, but this was better.

"Victory is at hand," he said.

"Yes."

"Do you anticipate life on Cybertron with pleasure or are you becoming apprehensive?"

"I don't know. It's hard to grasp the idea of living on another planet and one that's nothing at all like Earth. It just brings up a lot of questions."

"Such as?"

"Little stuff, like where will I live? Will I be able to move around freely or will I have to watch out constantly?"

"You will live at Darkmount with myself and the others, of course. And since you belong to me, you are free to do as you please within reason."

"What's Darkmount, a city?"

"No, it is a fortress in the region known as Polyhex."

"What am I going to do there? What would you possibly need me for?"

"You will continue as you have here. There will be much work to be done that will require your skills."

"Will there be other Decepticons?"

"Yes. There will be those who remained on Cybertron and there may be others who were gone in an effort to colonize areas to expand the empire."

"They won't be hostile, will they?"

"I think you will be more of a novelty than anything else at first, as none of them have seen a human before. Given time to observe and speak with the others, I think they will eventually come to accept you."

"I hope so."

"A large number of them are seekers, so that may help given your apparent affinity for them."

"Maybe." She didn't argue. Erica tried not to show any favoritism as she went about her job, but she did seem to gravitate toward them.

They sat there for a long while, neither saying further. The stars sparkled and the breeze continued bringing the smells of springtime. Unintentionally, the human began to fall into a light doze. In the beginning of this odd relationship she would never have thought it possible in a million years.

Sensors told Megatron that she was slipping ever closer to a full on recharge cycle. Initially he had no intention of honoring any of her requests and was going to leave her to her fate, but since then he had changed his mind. Hard to believe, but the mech had actually come to enjoy her company sometimes. Her inferior organic brain had a way of viewing things from unusual angles that sometimes forced him consider things in new ways as well. And her simple faith in his ability was also pleasant. She was a soldier with no underhanded ambitions. Sort of like Shockwave without the sycophantism, except that he didn't really trust him, either.

"Wake up. It is time to go back."

"I'm awake," she said around a large yawn.

Back on the ground, it seemed much chillier and she wasted no time going back into the silo.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX 

"We know what they're up to, but how do we stop them?" Asked General Harold Buchannon. The successor of Martin Sherrod was no nonsense but he fully recognized that the Autobots were far more knowledgeable than any humans when it came to fighting Decepticons and it would be wise to take any assistance they offered and consider any advice.

Optimus Prime toyed with one of the tiny rockets tangled in a mass of copper wire, which had been left in a field somewhere in Kansas. It was ingenious really. If the Sky Spy satellite hadn't just happened to pick up on the Decepticon activity they might have gone on indefinitely or until their goals were fulfilled. Of course they knew that a large quantity of the toy rockets had been stolen from a manufacturer and the copper wire from various suppliers, but no one had been able to figure out why. The humans had provided that answer. Their scientists surmised that the rockets with the wire served as antennas. They used something similar in their study of the properties of lightning. It was certain that the Decepticons were using it for energon production somehow. The idea that this had gone on undetected for weeks truly unsettled him. How far had they progressed, and to what end? Was there some devastating new weapon about to be unleashed?

"The first thing would be to locate their base of operations. To chase the storms would require something near to the general area," he replied.

"We have received reports of possible activity near Fargo, Texas. At first it wasn't considered credible."

"Why not?" Ironhide asked.

"There's nothing there to speak of. No power plants or anything else like the usual targets. And with all the media coverage people are jumping at shadows."

"But now?" Optimus prompted.

"We looked a little harder. There is an abandoned missile silo there that would make someone a perfect hiding place. A group of Army Rangers were deployed to the area to observe and report back," Buchannon noticed the look of concern on the faces of some of the big machines. "Don't worry. These are some of our best soldiers. They are very good at what they do and they had strict orders not to engage if it turned out someone was there."

"What did they discover?"

"We were hoping you could tell us." A series of slides were projected onto a screen that the man had brought along. The first showed just the area. The second revealed something that definitely looked like the enemy except that no one had seen them before.

"Do you recognize them?"

"No. Perhaps they are new arrivals."

"Great, just what we need," Gears complained.

Had Erica been there she could have easily identified them as Eight Ball and Sundog, a pair of the F-4s who had been assigned to that site. Additional slides showed Thundercracker and Ramjet arriving with another of the F-4s and then Blitzwing and Soundwave following soon after. The group disappeared underground and then there were still more slides showing the space bridge pulling the newest Decepticons upward and through the opening it created.

"So they have a space bridge there, that must be where they send away all the energon they've been collecting," Ironhide observed.

"Yes, but where are the others? It's unlike Megatron not to be directly involved in something like this," Optimus mused. If it had been Starscream he might have considered it some sort of power play within the enemy's ranks but the presence of Soundwave and Thundercracker, who were known to be very loyal, indicated otherwise.

"Well here's a scary thought," Wheeljack said, "What if they have more than one bridge going?"

"We'll send someone to systematically check every single known missile site. If they have one there's probably others." General Buchannon said as he reached for the phone to set things in motion.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

As loathsome as it was to admit it, harvesting lightning had been a brilliant idea, Starscream thought. They were on the last day of the project if all went as planned. He could hardly sit still at the thought of being back on Cybertron with enough energy to restore it to its former glory. If only he were in charge as he should be, things would be perfect. There would be time enough for that later. For now he would co-operate. Once things were in the proper shape he would find some way to take his rightful place as ruler. It was just a matter of time and he had plenty of that.

Something seemed amiss, but Thrust couldn't say just what it was. As they approached the location of the space bridge he observed nothing out of the ordinary.

"You," Thrust said to Four-three (Blaze to the human.) "Land and see what's going on down there."

"As you command."

"I give the orders here, Thrust," Starscream said. "What are you so nervous about?"

"It's just a feeling I have."

"Ridiculous."

Blaze (so named because of compressor stall problems that caused massive flames to shoot from the exhaust of his engines sometimes) transformed and landed. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking for. "Oh-eight? Four-seven?" He called with no response. Where were the others? They were supposed to be guarding the site. Maybe they were inside. He entered through the smaller door next to the large one that covered the silo. It was silent inside. The space bridge was in the usual place of course, but as he got closer he could see it was damaged. If he had a true personality he would have been pretty nervous by then, but as it was, he was merely curious until he saw something else in a far corner. It was the burned out carcasses of Eight Ball and Sundog. Blaze stood there for a second or two upon registering this new information. A slight metallic scraping sound from the darkness provoked him to action. He leapt upward, transforming as he went, and blasted a hole in the main silo door. He had not gone any more that one hundred feet through the opening before he was cut to pieces by laserfire that ignited all the energon he was carrying in a violent explosion.

Starscream and Thrust snap-rolled in opposite directions from each other to avoid the flying debris.

"Autobots!" Starscream hissed with rage. "Destroy them!"

Two seekers against eight Autobots were not much of a threat, especially when they had to protect the volatile energon cargo. They did manage to land several effective missile strikes inside the silo before retreating. Both tried to contact the others to no avail. They did not know if it was because of damage they had sustained or because there was interference from the storms or what, but it was a very unsettling feeling.

In fact it was a frequency disruptor that had been activated the minute the plot was discovered. There would be no warning for the Decepticons in Kansas.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

Scrapper had no idea of what the hold up was with the seekers. They should have been back by now. He and the other Constructicons had gone a considerable distance north chasing a storm. No one had been able to contact them. Slag it. They would take the energon they had collected while they had waited and deliver it to the space bridge in Kansas. It wasn't that far and it would be a good place to take five while they waited. That Starscream was going to get an audio sensor full after all his bragging about the superiority of air transport. Bah!

Upon arrival they were met by Thundercracker, Ramjet, Blitzwing and three of the zombies.

"What are you doing here?" Thundercracker asked.

"Getting the job done," said Bonecrusher with a smug grin.

"Where's Screamer and the others?"

"Who knows? They took a batch of energon to the Texas bridge and we ain't seen them since," said Longhaul.

"Did you try calling them?"

"Of course," said Hook.

Something was very wrong here. "Blitzwing, go see if you can find them."

"There you go," he said pointing. Two small specks on the horizon were getting closer with stunning rapidity. It was their missing comrades.

"What happened to you two, and where's what's his name…Four-three?" Thundercracker asked.

"It was an ambush!" Starscream said. "The Autobots were in the silo waiting for us. They destroyed the bridge and three of the zombies. That last part wouldn't be so bad except Four–three had a full cargo of energon."

"Oh that's bad. Megatron will be super pissed," the blue seeker said, unconsciously using the humans' swear. "Why didn't you call for backup?"

"We tried," Thrust said. "No one answered."

"None of us heard anything," said Scrapper. "Communications seem to be jammed."

The Air Commander looked alarmed. "Here too?"

"We tried to call you and you didn't hear it, right?" asked Scrapper.

"We heard nothing," Thrust confirmed.

"This is Site two calling Iowa site three, acknowledge," Thundercracker said, again trying to call out. Nothing happened.

"Kansas site two to headquarters, come in please." More nothing.

"Maybe we ought to get out of here," Longhaul suggested.

"We can't just leave the bridge unguarded," Starscream said.

"How about we get this energon out of here and then worry about rest after that?" Thundercracker said.

Without being told, three of the F-4s stepped up to the approach to the bridge and transformed, waiting patiently to be loaded down with energon and launched.

"These things can't carry all of it," Starscream said, plainly annoyed.

"Let's send what we can," Thundercracker replied.

"Hey geniuses, how are we going to send anything when we can't tell HQ to activate the bridge?" Scrapper asked.

Scavenger had remained quiet. His sensors were feeling kind of scrambled. He should be able to read all manner of communications frequencies utilized on this planet but he was getting nothing. A fast scan from his internal diagnostics showed that everything was normal. What about subspace, did that still work?

"Kansas site two calling headquarters."

XxXxX

What in the name of all that was sane were those idiots doing out there? Megatron wondered. He had heard from no one all afternoon and received no reply when he tried to reach them. The monitor showed a very violent and active storm pattern. They should be reaping untold amounts of energon and sending it back regularly. Space bridge activation had to be carefully coordinated since all of them terminated in the same spot. If more than one tried to send at a time it could result in cataclysmic destruction on the receiving end.

The tyrant was becoming more and more aggravated when a faint voice came through the static.

"…site two calling headquarters. Do you copy?"

"Speak up, Scavenger. I can barely hear you."

"Something is interfering with comm….SHRRRKKKK…but we are ready to send cargo."

"Stand by for transmission, Shockwave. Activating bridge."

Back in Kansas there was a small sense of relief. They weren't totally cut off after all. The bridge activated and the F-4s were pulled upwards and out of sight.

It was fortunate because as soon as the device became still again there was something else. Engine noise seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. The Decepticons were looking for the source and seeing nothing…until the hologram began to dissipate. They were effectively surrounded by Autobots and dozens of the human's tanks.

"Headquarters, we are under attack! Requesting reinforcements! Do you copy?"

Back in South Dakota, the only part that got through was 'under attack.' Whatever was blocking the signal must have gotten stronger because the subspace frequency was silent after that. It must be those wretched Autobots. Humans attacking wouldn't have gotten such a terrified sounding response from that coward Scavenger.

"Soundwave, get to the third bridge and counteract any attempts to block communication and prepare to hold that site at any cost. Take one of the force field generators. Total victory is within our grasp. We must not fail."

"Affirmative," Soundwave replied.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"What is up with this thing?" Erica asked no one in particular as she tapped the communicator that was pressed into her ear.

"I got nothing," Skywarp said. "Maybe it's all the lightning. Could we have fried something?"

"Not all of us at once in the same way. Do you think it's just some kind of pocket of interference, like a dead spot?"

"But it was fine this morning," Onslaught said.

"Yeah, that's true. But whatever's going on we need to figure it out, this stuff's really getting backed up." Great stacks of compressed energon cubes were standing off to one side of the bridge awaiting transport.

"I do not like it. I am going to check the perimeter," Dirge said and then was transformed and away.

"Shocker and Comet, maybe you ought to go south a little way and see if you can see anything," Erica suggested. "But don't go any farther than fifteen or twenty miles."

The two 'bots said nothing but merely did as they were told.

"I'm with Dirge," said Swindle, "There's something going on."

Further speculation was brought to an end with the arrival of Astrotrain. In his patrolling the air corridor between sites he had encountered the same communication problems as everyone else. He had gone to the closest site, which was Kansas to see if they were having trouble also and got there just in time to help try to repel the attack. The Constructicons had formed Devastator and were doing fairly well. If it had been only humans, they wouldn't have had too hard of a time but there were so many Autobots it was a no win situation. The space bridge had taken too much damage and malfunctioned badly when the zombie seekers tried to return. All three at that location had been destroyed on reentry. The decision was made to get the energon out before retreating.

Astrotrain was the largest and so had taken on as much cargo as he could manage and left.

"What's going on?" Vortex asked.

"It's a disaster," said the triple changer. "The Autobots and the humans are attacking the Kansas bridge. They already destroyed site one. Thundercracker, Starscream, Ramjet and Thrust will be along anytime now with the rest of the energon."

"What about the F-4s?" Erica asked.

"They're done. The ones here are the only ones left."

The engineer felt a little ill. Those poor things. They never had a chance. She looked over at Shadow and Bullet to see if the news affected them at all. They continued to wait for orders impassively. If they felt anything, they were keeping it to themselves.

Soon after that, their numbers rose as the other seekers arrived.

"Are you guys ok?" Erica asked.

"Yeah, we're fine. Devastator held them off long enough for us to get away. Oh, and we ran into Blitzwing and sent him to find the Stunticons."

"Why are you just standing there?" Starscream demanded. "Let's get this energon out of here."

"We'd love to, but we can't call Megatron to activate the bridge," Skywarp replied.

The Air Commander was about to say something else when Soundwave appeared. He was an expert at communications and after a few attempts, managed to block the frequency disruptor.

All of them heard the message sent by their leader as soon as contact was established.

"Attention all Decepticons. Converge immediately upon Iowa site three. Repel any attackers by whatever means necessary. The energon must be transported at all costs."

Soundwave then set about activating the force field generator. It flickered on, encasing the silo and some of the ground around it in a field that would repel any attacks for a while. It was not a moment too soon. While Shadow and Bullet were being sent through the bridge nearly overloaded with energon, Dirge, Comet and Shocker returned with bad news. There was a crowd of Autobots and humans on the way. It was a larger force than the one that had attacked the Kansas site.

"You have your orders. Protect the bridge at all costs," said Soundwave.

_Easy for you to say, you're in here._ Erica thought.

Dirge and the Combaticons soon had help when the Constructicons arrived looking a little rough around the edges.

"Did you terminate them?" Onslaught asked.

"No way," said Scrapper. "There were just too many."

"Or maybe you just weren't up to the task," the Combaticon taunted.

"You think it's that easy? You go right on out and fight them yourself."

"With pleasure," and then the mechs merged together to form Bruticus. "Let them meet their doom!"

"Yeah, let us know how that works out for ya," Mixmaster said with disgust.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

It was a colossal battle. No one side could claim an advantage for long. The Decepticon forces at one point thought things were beginning to favor them when the Stunticons finally showed up and formed Menasor, but then that hope was crushed with the arrival of the remaining Autobots aboard Skyfire. The mechs were evenly matched but the humans' armed forces were starting to tip the balance.

It would have been of no consequence except that the force field was starting to fail. Each time it was struck with lasers or bullets it would flicker more and more.

"I don't think we're going to make it," Skywarp said.

"We'll go as long as we can, but I think you're right," Thundercracker replied. They had managed to send half of the huge pile of compressed energon cubes but there was so much left. They had resorted to rigging a net and loading it as well to be towed by one of the F-4s. So close but so far away.

Erica was preparing to fight. How they could possibly continue to send the cargo once the force field was down was beyond her. There were machines and humans everywhere she looked. It was total mayhem. The skies were full of aircraft. Some were damaged but kept going. She expected to be very busy later attending to injuries. Overhead the force field gave one last flash and crackle, and then it was down. Immediately gunfire of every kind was directed at the bridge.

The device activated again, this time returning Shadow, Comet, Shocker and Bullet. Each of them took a position around the bridge and began firing upon their attackers. First they would decrease the number of the enemy and then they could get back to ferrying the energon. The enemy had other ideas.

Shocker was the first to fall. An incoming incendiary mortar round did him in. No more would he be plagued by electrical problems or anything else. Bullet went down not long after when he was struck by a couple of shoulder launched missiles. The magnesium charges melted some critical internal workings before he knew what had hit him. Comet went airborne to try his luck there and was blasted by three Aerialbots.

Only Shadow remained. He had a much better grasp on how being a moving target made things more difficult for one's enemies.

Erica was doing damage and managing to avoid being hit by anything. Aside from having to dodge Bullet when he fell, it hadn't been too bad. All the other humans were concentrating on the big targets. Except for one.

Less than a mile from the chaos was a solitary soldier. He was Corporal Matt Watterson of the United States Army Special Forces. He was lying on the ground carefully adjusting his weapon. The scope on the rifle was highly accurate and very strong and he had already made allowances for range, wind and elevation. He brought the weapon to bear on his target. The son of the late Larry Watterson was one of the best snipers the Army had ever produced. When he fired, he did not miss.

The air was thick with lasers and bullets. Erica noticed how the sound of a ricochet was very similar to the effect used in the movies. She wasn't sure but it looked like maybe, just maybe they were starting to repel the attackers. She stepped out from behind a section of the bridge to get a better shot at an Autobot who wasn't paying any attention to what was behind him.

It's been said by veterans of war that though you might hear bullets whizzing through the air all around, you never heard the one that gets you. Erica did not hear it.

Corporal Watterson had aimed for her heart, but the fortunate engineer tripped at the last possible microsecond and the projectile tore into the area beneath her right shoulder and exited the back leaving a gaping wound. She spun back just a little and fell. The world got dark for a second or two, but then came back with a monstrous pain. When her vision cleared, there was Skywarp looking horrified as he crouched over her.

"Do you still function?" he asked.

"Yeah, but God, this fucking hurts."

"We have got to get you out of here."

"You can't go. You've got to take care of the energon."

"Slag that!"

Thundercracker saw it happen and was already thinking. "SEVEN-FIVE GET OVER HERE NOW!"

Shadow was used to being ordered around, though sometimes he didn't care for it. Thundercracker rarely yelled at him so it must be very serious.

"How bad is it?" The blue mech asked as he looked over Skywarp's shoulder.

"She's leaking blood pretty badly. What do we do?"

"We'll send her back to HQ. Megatron will know what to do. He's studied humans a lot more than any of the rest of us."

"I'll do it."

"'Warp, you can't. We have to finish the job."

"Frag the job!"

"Listen to me, there's no time for this. We're the only ones left. We'll get it done and then you can go, all right?

"But she can't wait."

"She won't have to, see?" He said gesturing at Shadow who had transformed and was waiting patiently with the canopy open and engines cycling up.

"I don't know…"

"It's the only way."

Skywarp carefully picked up the human trying to cause as little pain as possible. There was so much blood. He placed her in the pilot seat and then paused.

"You better not mess this up or I will gut you myself," he said.

Shadow said nothing in response but closed the canopy and steered toward a clear area to take off. Many shots were aimed at the jet but the two seekers put down enough covering fire to allow a clean escape.

XxXxXxXxX

If she didn't move, the pain was a lot less intense but she was still fading in and out of consciousness.

"Are you still operational?" Shadow asked.

"Yeah, kind of."

"At present speed we will reach our destination in approximately 40 minutes."

"Good."

"How may I assist you?" Geez, that voice he had made him sound like her welfare was the last thing he wanted to deal with. This wasn't the case and she knew it.

"Just get me home. I don't think there's anything else you can do."

"You will advise of any changes?"

"Uh-huh."

Awareness came and went, she didn't know for how long. Erica snapped back to consciousness when there was a loud bang and the aircraft lurched to one side. Alarms began to sound inside the cockpit.

"What's going on, Shadow?"

"I have sustained damage."

"From what?"

"A human launched projectile. Observe," he said, and then rolled to the left so that she could see the ground below. It was an armored column that stretched for miles. They were heading for the last silo.

"Shit, we gotta get there in time to warn Megatron!" she knew their leader was supposed to be indestructible but everyone had limits.

"It will be done."

Erica looked at the instrument panel. One engine was losing oil pressure and would never make it. Shadow said nothing more for another twenty minutes.

"Fasten the seatbelt and prepare for ejection."

"What are you talking about?" She said as she struggled with the multiple belts and latches.

"We are approaching our target. I am too damaged to land. You will be ejected. The seat has been fitted with a parachute."

At that moment the damaged engine blew itself apart setting off more alarms.

"Ejection imminent," Shadow said, in a pained voice.

"Wait."

"No. You will be ejected or you will be destroyed. Commencing countdown, launch in five…four…three…" the canopy blew off, "two…one…" There was a 'whoosh' and then the human was suddenly in open space and falling. The chute deployed and she was then gently on her way down.

The same could not be said for Shadow. The F-4 was trailing smoke and never veered as he flew into the ground and exploded.

XxXxXxXxX

Inside the silo, Megatron activated the space bridge yet again. In two or three more trips they would have all the energon they would need. The attackers seemed to be giving up. Many of the humans had retreated. It would happen at last. Cybertron would be his.

There was a loud explosion outside that caused vibration and some small bits of debris to fall around him. That surely wasn't Seven-five. Soundwave had alerted him to the imminent arrival of the human. Evidently she had sustained an injury of some kind. He did not know the extent of the damage. His sensors alerted him to the arrival of his pet at the same time he heard something behind him. The mech turned around in time to see her collapse in a heap just inside the doorway and make no attempt to rise.

"Greetings Mighty One," Erica said weakly when her realization returned and she saw the white and silver tyrant towering over her. It was getting harder and harder to come back.

He said nothing, but instead crouched and carefully picked her up. She would not have imagined him capable of such gentleness. The mech looked at her and performed a scan. The news was not good. There was too much blood gone and she was on the verge of shock. It was surprising to him that she had somehow gotten back down to the control room from outside in this state.

"You have to get out of here," she said tiredly.

"What?"

"They're going to be here soon."

"Who?"

"The Army or something. They got Shadow. He crashed."

"I fear no humans."

"I know you don't, but there's an awful lot of them and only one of you. And there's probably Autobots too." She coughed from the exertion and then looked at her hand. It was covered with a fine spray of blood. "Shit, that isn't good."

"Regrettably, I don't think there is anything I can do for you," the mech said quietly. He did not love her as most would love a pet, but not because he was incapable of the emotion like everyone believed. If Erica had had a few lifetimes she might have been able to get around the suspicion and wariness but she didn't. But that isn't to say he wasn't fond of her in his own twisted way.

"You must be in terrible pain. If you so desire I can end your suffering. It would be instantaneous."

"No, I think I'm gonna ride this pony as long as it runs," she said, lying on her uninjured side and curled up tightly.

"Very well."

"Could I ask you for a couple of favors? I swear, it's the last time."

"Certainly." It was then that Megatron came to perform the last selfless acts of his life.

"If you can… would you stay until it's over? I don't want to die alone."

"Of course. Do not concern yourself further."

"Thank you. And when you see Skywarp, tell him something for me…"

"What?"

XxXxX

The mech was impressed with her will to live. As he continued to operate the remaining space bridge, he simultaneously monitored the human's bio functions. She drifted in and out of consciousness, staying out longer and longer each time. An idea occurred to him. It was probably too late, but there would be no harm in trying this experiment. He carefully placed her on a nearby recharge platform and then opened a small panel on his left arm. Close to the surface was a conduit that carried the pale blue repair fluid. He pulled one end free and carefully allowed a few drops to land on the open wound. The liquid sat on the surface for a few seconds and then was absorbed. Nothing happened. He returned to the control panel and sent the last batch of energon home. When the mechs carrying it were returned, the order was given: Destroy the bridge and converge on the South Dakota site immediately.

Megatron returned to Erica. Her breathing was taking on a noisy, rattled sound. He reached out and patted her on the head one last time. Two minutes later she ceased functioning.

XxXxX

Skywarp flew over the armored column at the speed of sound, strafing it as he went, before teleporting out of sight. The humans were getting close to the field HQ. No doubt the Autobots would be joining them as soon as possible.

When he emerged he was within sight of the silo and was in time to witness Megatron blasting it into rubble. The seeker transformed and slid to a stop.

"Greetings Skywarp," the mech said solemnly.

"Greetings Lord Megatron." He was unsure how to proceed. There was evidence of an explosion nearby. The remaining scraps identified it as an F-4 Phantom. His manner betrayed his worry and he didn't have to ask about what was on his mind.

"Erica functions no longer. The damage was too extensive."

The seeker said nothing but his wings visibly sagged.

"However, she did request that I inform you of her thanks for everything and that you remained her favorite 'lawn dart,' whatever that means."

"Thank you." Skywarp did not bother to elaborate on the joke. On occasion when, out of orneriness, he called her a puny human her retort was usually to call him 'lawn dart' or the variant 'big dumb lawn dart' if she was annoyed. And now it seemed he was no one's dart.

"Her sacrifice was not in vain. Cybertron is ours."

"Yes."

They said no more and were soon joined by the rest of their faction. The humans and the Autobots were much too late. The Decepticons were reveling in their triumph on their home world before the next sunrise on Earth.

XooXooXooXooXooXooXooXooXooX

The silo was mostly destroyed. Entry would be next to impossible. It had served several purposes and its last use was intended to be as a tomb. Megatron knew that his human's biological functions had stopped, he did not bother to scan for _bio-mechanical_ functions. Had he done so he would have discovered that his last ditch experiment was a success. Kind of. The mech was one of the few who really knew the secret of the blue substance from the internal diagnostic and repair systems. The reason that it was so effective in healing wounds was because it was full of nanites, tiny robots that were microscopic even by human standards. These nanites could reconstruct almost any part up to a point. They also tended to have a degree of the knowledge of their carrier. Megatron's nanites had entered Erica's bloodstream, what was left of it, and had encountered a number of interesting mutations that the human had no knowledge of. She had been right to be concerned about exposure to energon and all the different alien energies. If the sniper had not killed her, in another six months she would have endured something much, much worse before finally meeting death.

The attempted destruction of the silo further set things in motion. In time the nanites would have run out of energy in the human's body. Fortunately for them, the explosion caused the recharge platform to fall and land upon a low voltage cable that was connected to the power source for the computers. There would be plenty of energy for them now. It would take a lot of time but with the power and the mutations they had plenty of material to work with and they proceeded to get down to business.

The End

To be continued as A Blessing and A Curse.


End file.
